Had a bad night tonight at work but also a moment of clarity. The bad side I spiked to 220 and over compensated crashing to 50(didn’t take into affect the amount of lifting I have to do). The moment of clarity was I had been showing at least one symptom around a year before going into the hospital. Back in August 2009 I started getting numbness in my left arm and hand. It still goes numb if I go high. I put this off as a sign of development of MD, my mother has Myotonic muscular dystrophy 2 and it is genetic or that my armband for my airport ID was to tight. Now I know it was most likely neuropathy just kind of scary how long I went, well guess I can’t be stubborn and avoid the doctors anymore.
So just wondering for all you late bloomers(and some younger I guess), looking back now when did you start showing signs.
I was diagnosed at age 14, so not a “late bloomer” by some definitions, but I had obvious signs of diabetes (extreme thirst, like gallons every few hours, having to go pee every 10 minutes, ketotitic breath, Kussmaul breathing, hypertachycardia) for several weeks before diagnosis. In the day or two before I finally got dragged to the hospital I was lapsing in and out of consciousness and having some weird-■■■ hallucinations.
If I think back to a year or two before diagnosis I think some of the lesser signs (thirst, having to go pee all the time) had come and gone several times in those two years.
All this was long enough ago, that after I got to the hospital the “official” diagnosis wasn’t done with a blood test but with urine test. The Tes-Tape turned jet black INSTANTLY. Later when they could run a blood test (which meant drawing blood from a vein and sending it off to a lab, this was before fingerstick testing or at least nobody in my hometown knew about fingerstick testing) they said my bg was 1800 and I’m guessing it had been in the thousands for weeks before that.
Senior Year of college, very active, work out all the time etc, I started going to the bathroom a ton and extremely thirsty, this went on for a few weeks/month before I went to the doctor. I went to one of those immediate care centers since I didn’t have a local doctor at college. They drew blood etc and I was on the way with my girlfriend to vacation for fall break. I’ll never forget the phone call that your blood sugar is in the 400’s and you need to go to a hospital now. I broke down in tears thinking im going to die young,
That was 4 years ago and even then I don’t think I have had an A1C over 7, my current is 6.1 and should be lower at the next doctor visit. Thank you technology
That I can remember? Winter of 2006. That’s when I first started going to the doctor, insisting there was something wrong with me, and I thought I had heart trouble, at the time, which they did a stress test that supposedly came out okay… but… they didn’t do anything else. They didn’t check anything, or do any bloodwork… Then in January of 2007, they did some bloodwork to check my thyroid, and they casually did a glucose fasting, among a few other things, and it was 143… and they ignored that, too. Hindsight’s 20/20.
I lost a lot of weight several months before diagnosis, but did not show any other symptoms. When I finally did show other symptoms it was only a matter of literally 2-3 days before I was diagnosed. I was 6 years old. Doctors believe I essentially had NO honeymoon period. I was extremely fast onset. When diagnosed I already had almost no perceptible C-peptide production.
I had been tired, having more thirst and peeing at night for a few months and sort of ignored it, thinking I was working a fulltime job and teaching at night so that’s why I was tired. and peeing during the night happens when you get older. But I also had been losing weight, about 2 pounds a week, which I loved as I was overweight, but knew was unusual because at my age (58) I had trouble losing weight even with working at it!
Then one day it suddenly dawned on me. I knew thirst and peeing were signs of diabetes, but wasn’t sure about weight loss. I looked it up online and found that weight loss could, indeed, be a symptom of diabetes. My grandmother had had diabetes (I’m assuming type 2, but I really don’t know) and I’d heard it skipped generations. (Is that another myth we all used to believe?). So then I knew. I called my doctor and asked for a blood test for diabetes. My doctor lived in the city an hour over the mountain, so she just faxed a request to our local clinic and I called to get the results. The nurse told me my fasting was 325 and the doctor wanted to see me the next day. I had no idea what “325” meant, so just said, “so that means I have diabetes?” I already knew.
It just dawned on me writing this that I hesitate to go to the doctor unless I already know what is wrong with me! Wow, my doctors must think I’m a cheap date!
I was diagnosed at age 9 and only remember symptoms for a few weeks prior to diagnosis. I was diagnosed in early Octoebr and when I think back to the summer I don’t remember anything, and certainly nothing a year before. Late September is probably when it started, because I remember we were fairly established in school routine by the time I started feeling thirsty. I was EXTREMELY thirsty and that’s what I remember most. I was never NOT thirsty. Adults around me also noticed the weight loss and that I generally wasn’t feeling well, so made a doctor’s appointment. I had a short honeymoon (six or eight weeks) about a month after diagnsosis but I was only able to reduce insulin use, not come off it completely, and definitely still had highs in there. I have never had c-peptide done and don’t know what my blood sugar was at diagnosis (but it was high enough that we were told to go to the hospital immediately as they were worried about a diabetic coma), but both would be interesting to find out.
I was diagnosed in December 21st 2006. My dr asked me questions as I was always drinking something, etc. And going to the bathroom a lot. I wrote it off as I’m tiny and have a small bladder, etc. But no, it was me being a diabetic! I composed myself as I went to get my prescriptions filled and when I came back I was in tears. Why, I saw how much money I spent as the week before I lost my job and didnt think I had insurance. I spent over 300 dollars for my first set of pens, pen needles, syringes, glucose meter and strips. My boyfriend at the time suspected it back in September of 06 when we were in florida when the pool pavement didnt bother my feet and he was jumping up and down. I also figured out for a long time I was hypoglycemic. I had pain in my right arm and just automatically went for sugar and felt better. Again never thought it was Diabetes. Or I would feel like I was gonna pass out if I didnt eat at a certain time. And the naps I would take as I thought it was being tired. This was going on when I was 19 but didn’t take note until 2006 when I was 29.
So again it was me not knowing the signs really. I just happened to of had a dr at the time that wanted to run a few blood test and that was one of them. And it came back in the 300s fasting and after eating. Last year when I reunited with my father’s side of the family I found out my grandma was a type 2. It solved the mystery as how it came about as I knew my moms side of the family didnt have it and I didnt know my father’s side of the family’s history, drs never bothered to test. Now I know and I may been stubborn about it every day but at least I am embracing it with a CGM and hopefully a pump.
I was 26 when I was diagnosed and I figure I was showing symptoms for at least 6 months before the official dx, though the symptoms were becoming progressively worse – and fairly quickly – as time went on.
Interestingly, I had developed some sort of upper respiratory infection about 1 year before the dx. It was extremely nasty, with a loud, barking cough that simply would not go away, even after a month of treatment. That was the first time I was put on an albuterol inhaler, as a way of trying to control the cough and allow me to go about normal, everyday life. Well, as normal as graduate school can be.
Looking at my history like that, I’d say that’s closer to how a typical type 1 develops – catches a virus, body fights it off but then the immune system goes on an extended “hunt and kill” mission that destroys the body’s beta cells. Biggest difference seems to be that, for a while, my body stopped (or at least slowed down).
Perhaps you’re not aware, Liz, that it wasn’t that long ago that the guidelines for diagnosing diabetes got changed and the cutoff for fasting glucose got reduced. A doctor who has been out of med school for a good 20 years would have learned his diabetes diagnostic criteria back in the day when you had to have 2 fasting readings over 140 OR one random bg reading over 200 PLUS unambigious symptoms (polyuria, polydipsia, polyphagia, fatigue, yeast infections, etc) in order to be dx’ed with dm. Though that 143 was in 2007 (a “casual glucose” is a blood sugar reading taken at times other than fasting, so doctors who see that tend to give everyone a little more leeway, unless it’s unambigiously high), it’s entirely possible that when he got that report, the doc you saw understood it using the diagnostic criteria from 20 years ago. It’s also possible that if the word “casual” is written on that report, he again said, “That’s not so bad”.
Another thing you might not be aware of is that when the AACE, ADA, and others began to propose the change in the diagnostic criteria, there was actually a backlash from many doctors and others (including those of us who were currently diagnosed). Many saw lowering the diagnostic threshold from ~140 to 126 as a ploy by the pharmaceutical industry to increase the number of people diagnosed with diabetes and to whom they could sell drugs. There were people who saw it as unnecessary, burdensome, and just plain greedy, and I cannot say they were entirely wrong.
It’s not to excuse the doctor (G*d knows I don’t when my docs do not use accurate, up-to-date information with me), but to try to see the situation through his POV.
1800?! If you’re going to do it, you might as well do it right. That’s amazing. I remember the Tes-Tape. Now it seems to be the equivalent of clay tablets. You have one kick-■■■ constitution.
I was excessively thirsty. Right around the time I had gone in for evaluation, we were in a restaurant and I slammed three sodas right in a row. My mom said, “if you’re tests don’t come up positive for sugar, I’ll eat my hat.” She did not have to eat her hat. I don’t remember if I had many other classic symptoms. I had an experience while on a field trip where I got really ill, I was really nauseous and felt cold and clammy. When we got out of the Federal Reserve Bank my teacher took a look at me and looked really worried. We went and got lunch and that seemed to make me better. These things happened fairly close to diagnosis. I was seeing a doctor because my right leg would go out from under me and I had some discomfort in the hip. My doctor ordered a full blood/urine profile and the urine test was positive for glucose. My onset was probably about 1-2 months before diagnosis.
Put mine off to so many thing numbness was easy to put off. Weight loss and thirst working outside in the summer. Fatigue 3rd shift and young kids. peeing every 15 minutes by product of thirst, passing out “I just feel asleep”. Didn’t really hallucinate but got the “walls shifting”. The vomiting is what got me i couldn’t even hold down water and hadn’t eaten in 3 days when I went to the DR.
its funny looking back now as all signs were there. thirst drinking loads peeing loads no energy
blah blah blah…
i remember this one time (at band camp lol) i was at home and was about to get ready to go out with some friends. sat down on the sofa and felt sleepy couldn’t keep my eyes open then slept for a bit. came to and phoned the friend we all was going to meet at house. told him i was going to have to bow out.
still didnt feel right but found some coke in the fridge (dont ask me why i was in there cos i dont know) and had some. i was back in the game yay. still didnt put things together but i was having thoughts… happened a few too many times for my liking.
fast forward a few months and ive got an itch and itch in a place we dont want…
so i phoned the g/f told her about said itch she thinks that i dont trust her but had to ask.
so off i go to the clinic. she has a look and then runs off to get the doc. so at this point im a tad worried. he comes in and said good news you haven’t got anything from the g/f but go see your doc NOW!! you have diabetes and its serious. gulp makes sense now
A few days before I went in my mom said it sounds like diabetes. No that couldn’t be it, damn it I don’t want to be like my mother. Guess momma knows best some times.
Oh don’t worry about the doctor thinking your a cheap date. I was one of those I don’t need a doctor unless I’m dieing people.
Hindsight’s 20/20.