I was diagnosed 13 years ago as type 2 by my internal med dr. I have actually never seen an endo for diabetes but my dr. then was pretty up on things. At the time I was diagnosed I was on the high end of normal for weight, very active, and very muscular. I was also only 34. Anyway, she gave me some of the standard diet stuff the ADA hands out and I followed it. A month later, my levels were still high by ADA standard.
The only reason the dr. tested me was that I was gestational with both of my pregnancies and I insisted. I have family history of type 2 on both sides. I had been tested every years since my first pregnancy at 21.
I was put on 1000 mg of metformin which helped get my bs down. As I remember, it was about 105 fasting and about 145 2 hr pp. The met combined with diet kept me in pretty good control for about 10 years.
Around year 10, my bs started to creep up and my met dose went up to 1500 mg. Since I was sticking pretty well to the ADA diet and the increased met kept me in ADA range I continued on.
About a year ago my body seems to have gone haywire. For a while, I had no insurance and ran out of synthroid for my hypo active thyroid. I finally found a clinic to go to and they drew to test my TSH. It was normal after about 3 month of no drugs. The GP kept me off my pills. But, I didn't feel very good and eventually got a referral to an endo around the time I got medicaid. As you know, it is impossible to get private health insurance when you have chronic health issues.
Endo still has not figured out what is going on with my thyroid. I'm still off meds. My numbers are what he calls odd and so is my history. He's watching me waiting to see if my tests ever stabilize since they wander a bit.
Meanwhile, we're still trying to figure out why I still feel so bad. Ultimately, a bunch of problems are pinned to female issues that results in a hysterectomy in December, 2011. Here I am, nearly 3 months later and have recovered enough from that to have normal BS readings.
If anything, they are worse (I kept my ovaries so my hormones should still be the same but they aren't). Obviously, I have to take it easy exercising and was bed ridden the last 2 months before surgery. So I figured I should watch my diet. I ended up dropping my carbs down to 20 a day for a few days but just couldn't handle that. I'm a full time student and it was making me dingy. Now I'm at about 60 which makes my brain function better but still hasn't gotten my blood sugar consistently to the point of meeting ADA standards much less anything lower.
I have always had random spikes and drops even when pretty well controlled. I can eat 5 carbs and shoot up 50 points, I can eat 60 carbs in a single sitting and go up 15 points. I can feel hypo even when I haven't done anything different. I have always had DP which is somewhat helped by eating something fatty right before bed.
My A1Cs used to run in the 5s. In the last couple years it's been low 6s. BS runs the gamut from just over 100 to as high as 250. I have never caught it going below 100 in probably 5 years except when I feel hypo (which is really not because then it is about 75). I am still the same weight I was when diagnosed but not as toned so I'm trying to take off about 20 lbs. That will put me at a body fat on the low end of normal, right now I'm at the high end.
Sorry for the novel, my history is long and my health is complicated. It seems I have all sorts of endocrine issues. I am trying to get a dr. appt. for next week. It will be with my GP since I will need a referral to see the endo. So what should I ask him? Are there any tests besides A1C I should have done? He is a great guy but since he's a GP he mostly deals with colds and such. He is always exploring new ideas and is fascinated whenever I bring him new info from my endo. Also, drug recommendations? If there is something we should look at trying he'll be more than happy to look at it but he may not know a lot about it. Sally has already told me that she thinks I should look at insulin and I'm inclined to agree. It seems that orals besides met won't give me enough control over lows since I seem to be making some insulin sometimes.
Thanks for any suggestions. I'm really excited I found this forum. Some of the forums are full of people who insist that 20 grams a day is the only way to control diabetes and if you don't do that then it's your fault you have bad BS.