Yes, there was stress at 58 years old and being dx’d. I was dx’d by my PCP as T2 at 58, spent about 8 years taking metformin and glyburide/glemepuride. 2.5 years ago, meds stopped having much effect at all, climbing BGs. PCP said “perhaps you’re not T2, possibly T1.5 LADA” and referred me to an Endo. She ordered a c-peptide/GAD test and a couple of days later, I was correctly dx’d T1 LADA at 66 years old, immediately put on insulin (Novolog/lantus). One year later, I asked for a pump (Omnipod DASH); four months later I joined the DIY Loop-dev community and haven’t looked back. Quite a bit of stress, particularly when things haven’t “worked right”. Thank God for wife that is at least tolerating, mostly understanding. I’m a Type A, always have been, and I don’t tolerate not being in control of myself well…but I’m having to learn now…
Absolutely! My father died about 6 months prior to me getting ketoacidosis and eventual Type 1 diagnosis. My stress was caused by figuring out how to take care of my helpless elderly mom. She was so dependent on him and I had no idea how much. It caused me more stress than I ever had in my life. I should also add that i was 53 years old at the time.
I had a sometimes stressful job before I was diagnosed, but I don’t attribute it to the onset of LADA. I attribute it to a severe case of norovirus I had about 9 months prior. (I started having symptoms about 6 months prior, but they were not the usual symptoms you are asked to look for.) As an aside, long before my T1D diagnosis, I had regular bloodwork and regular visits with my PCP for other chronic health conditions. A few years before I got the norovirus, my A1c started to go up, even though all of my other bloodwork and my weight were well within range. My PCP thought my A1c might be related to the onset of hypothyroidism, menopause and possibly gluten intolerance, so I made some changes in my diet and my A1c did come down - for awhile. Then my A1c went from 6.2 to 13.1 in three months, and it was at that point my PCP sent me to an endocrinologist.
I was an adult college student, and had been admitted to an elite program that basically made me a graduate student while still an undergrad. Very challenging—a self-designed medieval studies program, taking various graduate seminars in Middle English, medieval philosophy etc. One seminar was with a world-renowned Chaucerian, visiting prof who was head of Medieval Studies at York University in England. I’d kind of leaped into the deep end with all this stuff as I’d never read Middle English before, and the other “real” grad students I was studying with had. So yeah, pretty stressful. Early my first term in the program, September-ish, I had a really nasty cold that seemed to hold on way longer than usual. Finally got over it, but then six weeks or so later, somewhere in November, I started feeling just really crappy, no energy, nausea, headache, like a hangover only it kept getting worse and anyway I wasn’t drinking. And then this other mysterious thing: having to pee all the time, and so thirsty no matter how much liquid I consumed. Had no idea what it was, but my wife’s mom, an occupational therapist with pretty wide experience, said “That sounds like diabetes, get that boy to a doctor stat!” (I was 28). Sure enough, the doc said, “You are the proud owner of juvenile diabetes. Probably tomorrow or the next day your wife wouldn’t have been able to wake you up in the morning.” This was 1983, and they still called it “juvenile,” though my doc explained they were trying to get that changed to the Type 1/Type 2 convention.
So yeah, my case kinda fits the stress + virus model, though who knows. Funny thing was that I had to write off to England to get an extension on my final paper in the seminar with the visiting prof. He being very much a practitioner of the Dry British Wit school (he was pals with Terry Jones of Monty Python, whom I later got to meet and hang out with). His reply said no problem about the extension and expressed sympathy for my diagnosis by noting “It must be even more annoying to get the ‘juvenile’ kind.”