Hi! I’m new to the site as of today, and this is my first time reaching out. It’s nice to have places like this to find people who have traveled this road way longer than I have!!! My story is kinda crazy, so sorry in advance for the long post!
I was told I had pre-diabetes (presumably type 2) and seemed to be doing great controlling my A1c with diet and exercise for almost 2 years, then my numbers went crazy last July! Having worked hard to successfully keep things under control without the medication, I attributed this spike to a steroid regimen for another issue, and ignored it for a while. But when the fatigue, blurry vision and frequent urination became almost too much this past January, I made an appointment with my doc. I saw him on Feb. 9th, he ran my A1c, and assumed it was type 2 and based on my history and symptoms, put me on metformin and Invokana. The day after my appointment was the first day with a blood glucose meter, and my fasting bg was 425–yikes!!! After 2 or 3 days on the meds, it had dropped down to under 200, but by day 4 I started getting really sick. After 2 days of severe nausea, cramping, extreme fatigue, throwing up and not being able to eat, I googled the side effects of the meds. I had been on metformin before for a brief period and had no issues so didn’t think it was that, but found that one side effect of Invokana is ketoacidosis. I had no clue what that was so googled it too. Seeing I had a lot of those symptoms, I asked my husband to run and get me some ketone strips. Well, my ketone level was extremely high, and as sick as I felt it was time to go to the ER–worst Valentine’s day EVER!!!
Diagnosis was DKA–spent 24 hours in the ICU, and 3 more days recovering in the hospital with IV fluids, insulin and electrolytes. My bg going in the hospital was about 160, which is not all that high so be careful those of you who are on invokana because apparently you can go into DKA on this drug without really high bg!!! My CO2 blood gas level was a 7, which I was told is really bad.
I believed it was the invokana that caused my DKA (which it may very well have been), and my regular doctor still thought I had type 2, or maybe 1.5, which he explained to me. He wanted to get my results from the ER and confirm the DKA diagnosis, which he did. It took until April 7th before I could get in to see an Endo, and last Friday they called me with the definite diagnosis of type 1 diabetes after running the necessary blood tests. Not only that, but my thyroid is acting up. I have Graves disease (diagnosed at 21), and they told me I’ll have to get back on my meds for that. They also said my vitamin D3 is low and to start a supplement.
For the diabetes I’m on 1000mg of metformin twice per day, and 26u levemir at night. From the time I was in the hospital to the time I saw the endo, my A1c had gone from 9.7 to 6.7, and I haven’t had a bg over 140 in over a month (mostly #'s stay between 100 and 120), with only one time dropping to 67 and I had to eat something. So good results so far since I got my insulin dose to where it needed to be. I have novolog, but my doc said only to take if my fasting bg is over 200, which it hasn’t been since leaving the hospital. I’ve also tried to be very good with counting carbs and eating smaller portions, though far from perfect. And, I’ve read a LOT about diabetes in the last 2 months, which is why I know some of these spiffy terms LOL. Having already lived with one autoimmune disease (Graves) for 13 years, I’ve learned how important it is to understand what’s going on with my body and how to deal with it.
The last month and a half has been nuts!!! I’m just wondering how this happened? How all this works? Will my insulin requirements creep up over time? Is there a way to reduce the daily dose? Is there any way to avoid eventually having to take the novolog (sliding scale) injections? How many times and when should I really check my sugar every day (I’ve been doing 2-3 times)? Some people I’ve seen on here check it way more than that. Was the first 2 years of “pre-diabetes” really what people call a honeymoon period? I’m just a little lost, and lot overwhelmed
PLEASE HELP!!!
Thank you