Need to know if my symptoms are diabetes-related

Hello everyone,

I have what I suspect to be LADA for 10 years this year. I have not had issue so far with the control and stayed relatively healthy all those years. However, lately I am starting to experience weird symptoms that may or may not be diabetes-related. I would like to know if anyone has those or at some point had them and what was the diagnosis?
First, I have unusual jitters occasionally mostly in the mornings even when BG shows normal readings. They seem to worsen with coffee but I would not say that is the only contributor. They are not apparent from outside (just me feeling them inside) and they feel much like “lows” but the BG reading shows normal.
Second (and this is really bothering me), in the middle of the night I have what I would describe as either palpitations , twitches in the middle of the chest and back or shaking. I tried to figure out what exactly were those were but as soon as I wake up and become more conscious they are gone. Again my BG can be normal, low-ish or high-ish seem to be unrelated to that.
my a1C is 6.2
ECG apparently normal
doctor think it could be anxiety but I had never had anxiety and I tend to think that is just their (drs’) way to say “we don’t know what you have”
Anyone experienced this? thanks a lot

Sometimes I have trouble differentiating between seizures (which tend to happen at night or in the early morning) and low BG. I would think that you would know if you had epilepsy or not, though. It took me a long time to get a diagnosis because everyone (including me) attributed it to diabetes.

Yesterday, my sensor read normal at 85, but I had extreme low BG. So, always double check with a finger stick. Sometimes I also get low BG symptoms with normal BG because that numbers have dropped rapidly in a short period of time - say, 250 to 100 in an hour.

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Have you had your thyroid checked? Feeling jittery, anxious, trembling, and palpitations can all be symptoms of hyperthyroidism. The most common cause of hyperthyroidism is Graves‘ disease, which is an autoimmune condition. Once you develop one autoimmune condition like Type 1 diabetes, you are at risk of developing others.

Of course, it may be many other things, but thyroid is an easy one to check if it’s been a while.

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Im not sure I understand from your post—- have you been diagnosed with diabetes and are taking diabetes medications for it? Or have you just had concerns for 10 years that you might have diabetes?

What meds are you taking ?

yes! this year is my diabetes diagnosis 10 yrs anniversary. Doctors classified it formally as Type 1 but because of very low dosing units I thing it mat be LADA. I take NOVOMIX 2 day and sometime Apidra but could handle without Apidra if no high carb meals in the middle of the day.

my doctor did thyroid screen with blood work, came back normal.

Hi Jen,
Yes I noticed similar things during the day but no such sudden changes during the night.

Type 1/LADA can be very slow progressing. Up to 8 years, but now I have heard of people that honeymoon symptoms are lasting for even longer. The honeymoon period is when you are still making insulin and you slowly lose the ability to completely make it. And it can be irregular production of insulin during that time.

10 years and minor dosing and still having a 6.2% doesn’t seem to fit the profile. Even with low carbing, you still have some carbs which a type 1 has to have insulin for, even for broccoli.

But who knows, this disease can be different with everyone and really the best thing to do is to get a C-peptide test done, which shows how much insulin you are producing, it has nothing to do with how much you take. Low to none is the sign of type 1, normal to high is the sign of type 2. And then get an antibody test. This shows if you are making the antibodies that are a definite type 1/LADA diagnosis. There are a rarer percentage that don’t make insulin but also don’t have the antibodies.

Also did he do a thyroid panel? Or just the TSH test. Because TSH is a common test but doesn’t give the complete picture. And thyroid issues can definitely cause jittery feelings. But there are other things than cause similar symptoms too.

Thanks so much for your reply Marie. I did all of the testing and it is LADA definitely. Jittery feeling may be that my body senses the changes that not even sensor can pick up at the moment. They are currently testing my heart for the night symptoms

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