Hello.
I first posted in this forum before a few days after my diagnosis. https://forum.tudiabetes.org/t/diagnosed-2-weeks-ago-type-1/
At that time, my HbA1C was 13.2% and had Diabetic Ketoacidosis. I took another HbA1c ten days ago and… It was 5.6%. I did put some conscious effort in learning my body’s reaction to food and diabetes. And it does look like I understood it well. Mysugr app calculated my A1c to be 5.8% with all the reading from my glucometer. I thought that was too good to believe. Turns out it actually is better than that.
I actually had no dietary restriction. I ate pretty much whatever I wanted. I just made sure that I carb counted it properly and took the right amount of insulin.
I was quite happy. I took a shot and rewarded myself with some ice cream.
Edit: I forgot to mention that my C-Peptide is up from 0.16ng/mL at the time of diagnosis to 0.54 ng/mL. I have been taking 1500 mg of Niacinamide per day (my Endo didn’t prescribe that). So I don’t really know if I should attribute that increase to Niacinamide or to spontaneous and natural recovery. I welcome any comments on that.
Congrats on your great A1c result. I went back and reread the thread you started just after your diagnosis. Someone mentioned that the engineering mindset usually adapts well to living with diabetes and making the new regimen work.
I worked as a technician for my career and share similar abilities and strengths as engineers. My interest and understanding of math has helped me a lot. It appears your work background is serving you well as you figure out how to keep your diabetes in check.
Good luck with your continued success. Remember that T1D can be easier to control in the beginning if you’re still getting some assistance from a partially working pancreas during a honeymoon phase. As long as you use your meter to guide your meal timing, food choices, and amounts, you will do well.
Thanks for the response, Terry. I just updated the OP with my C-Peptide result. The engineering background did help me. I used the glucometer readings, carb intake and activity logs to generate a statistical model to understand how my body works. I was able to predict its behavior to some extent. But yes, controlling it seemed so easy. Too easy to be normal. Maybe it is because of my partially working pancreas. Guess I should prepare for harder days.
So you’re aware, the C-Peptide, more so for “new” T1D diagnosis, will fluctuate and some can keep varying levels for years. One thing having T1D and even T2D is you’'ll learn over time there are a lot of similarities, but no one is truly identical. BTW, information is key and being an engineer, you know that but for others reading this, it truly is worth more per ounce managing diabetes than gold itself.
The current elevated level of C-Peptide is indicating your beta islet cells are still producing insulin. So be aware that if you A1C increases at some point, don’t fret, it happens. If it doesn’t, better yet. Just make sure you remember so if it does increase, it could be related to your beta islets producing less (a few posts here to make people aware that beta islets produce c-peptide and insulin in equal amounts, that’s why c-peptide is used as one of the tools to diagnose).
Being an engineering type, want to also share, being newly diagnosed, might google/look up GABA and newly diagnosed T1D. This is getting very deep into medical terminology but will try to summarize as quickly as possible. There’s a balance in the body (yin/yang everywhere but just on this topic for now), glutamate excites the body/immune system. Gaba calms it down. The beta islets produce GAD (hence the GAD antibodies that is another tool used to diagnose T1D), helps to maintain this balance. Once the beta starts to lose it’s battle, there’s less GAD to convert glutamate into GABA. Hence T1D have an excited immune system. (Cortisol also helps slow down the immune system – hence when you’re sick you want to sleep which dissipates cortisol and allows the immune system to get really active and attack viral/bacterial infections).
The reason I went into that is to make you aware, being the engineering type info is critical. Gaba is thought to help slow down the immune system and human islets in rats has been shown to help increase beta islets and also slow down the immune system.
I’ll stop there for now. Any questions, please ask.
Don’t take what happens as a personal affront to your analytical and problem solving skills. I don’t know how many people have said to me, “so the insulin cures you, right?”
It’s a treatment. A treatment that YOU will be adjusting yourself based on maddening fluctuations that you may never be able to completely grasp. It’s not always logical. It just is what it is.
Congratulations on getting things under control! My diagnosis experience and first months after were quite similar, so I related to your post and the sense of elation.
I know you didn’t ask about this in the post (but you did ask for advice from more experienced T1Ds in your earlier one), but the single most important thing I can recommend is to switch to a pump (and sensor) if you can afford one. My first endo put me on that technology practically from the moment of diagnosis (I did spend the first three months on MDIs due to insurance-related wait, which was just enough to be able to compare) and generally told me that for a motivated and tech-savvy person nothing else makes sense. I have been in agreement with her position ever since. The technology available to those of us diagnosed in this century makes life for a PWD as close as possible to a “normal” life and I for one appreciate that tremendously.
Best of luck keeping the good control through the inevitable changes ahead!
While there is early research suggesting a role of GABA in the progression and potential intervention no doctor would suggest that supplementing GABA is a good idea. In fact GABA levels are highly regulated in our bodies, and supplementation doesn’t make a difference to the levels of GABA in our bodies unless you dose at very high and inadvisable levels (not to mention you will probably go into debt).
Great work, just remember the honeymoon period can last for 2-3 years and make things a hell of a lot easier than they will be after it’s over. In my first 3 years I could eat pretty much anything I wanted, carb count, and end up with stellar blood sugars and A1Cs. This all changed eventually and it was quite shocking when I started seeing crazy high numbers after every meal. I hope your honeymoon lasts a long time!
Brian - You are right (somewhat). Certainly not all T1D have GAD antibodies, however, GAD (glutamic acid decarboxylase) is produced by the Islet Beta Cells which also produce insulin, c-peptide, etc. If you are not producing insulin or producing less and are showing GAD antibodies, this also means that you’re not producing GAD like you aren’t producing insulin.
GAD is produced by the body to help regulate the immune system (calm it down when it’s not needed and the T-Regulatory immune cells are supposed to help the immune system attack what it is supposed to attack). GAD converts Glutamate, which has an excitatory effect in the body, into GABA, which has an inhibitory effect on the body. So in T1D with GAD antibodies, no, GABA is not highly regulated in our bodies and are levels of Glutamate (excitatory effect) are elevated.
So, majority, but certainly not all, T1D with GAD antibodies are not regulating at all or any of their own GABA levels.
I did look that up. But I can’t really find a lot of studies which studied its effect. My doctor definitely won’t prescribe it. I’m not really sure if I should take it like I took Niacinamide. What are your thoughts? I tested positive for Anti GAD Antibodies, btw.
I’d love to have a pump. But I can’t afford it in the country I’m currently in. However, I’m moving to Germany soon and will try to get one with German insurance coverage.
I understand. A lot of people confuse this with Type 2 diabetes and tell me that with exercise and diet control, it can be reversed and can be maintained with tablets. Extremely annoying, haha.
I just remember that diabetes seemed somewhat easy for the first few years. My first few months were on MDI and it seemed like I could just take 15 units of Levemir at night and 2-3 units of NovoRapid with each meal and always be in target blood sugar range. I went on the pump a few months after diagnosis and remember just entering the carbs from the nutrition facts or from trial and error for what I was eating into my pump, and getting very good results almost every time. My A1Cs were always between 5.9 and 6.2 from what I remember. Then in my first semester of law school right before exams, everything changed. I thought my pump must be broken or there was something wrong with me, but it seemed like no matter what I did my blood sugars would be running high all the time, and I had never seen so many numbers in the teens (I’m on mmol/L, so the high hundreds if you use mg/dl). I had to increase my basal rates and ratios, and finally got things somewhat back to normal, but diabetes was never particularly easy again and my A1Cs were almost always hovering around and just under 7. It wasn’t until I got a CGM last year and started really thinking about how different foods, stress, morning, etc. affects my blood sugar that I was able to get an A1C back in the 5s. I probably have the best results I’ve ever had now actually, but it takes a lot of work and carb counting is nowhere near as simple as I thought it was when I was first diagnosed.
No set diet, but there are certain things I just avoid like regular coke, fruit juices, cereal, and a few other things. Most of the things I don’t eat I don’t really care about honestly. I’ve always preferred Coke Zero to Coke anyway! If I didn’t have a pump and Dexcom, I would probably have to restrict my diet a lot more to get good results though. I need to use extended boluses for a lot of the meals I eat, and it’s amazing how I’ve learned how many foods will digest and spike you hours later. I couldn’t imagine how many shots I would have to take on MDI to get good numbers without changing my diet, and it would be very difficult since I would only want to use pens, and you can only dose in single units or half units with some pens.
@spacepirate – I know you said for the moment a pump is not in the cards for you, but this is the BEST thing about being on one: much easier to NOT eat a set diet. For my experience / approach here: Semi-noncompliant pregnancy - #23 by Dessito (even though this is in the context of pregnancy, the description of what I do with respect to food applies regardless).
