A new report by the CDC shows that 4.3 percent of adults with diabetes don’t even know they have it. In all, nearly 14 percent of adults have the disease, with factors like gender, race, age, and weight playing a role in who is most susceptible.
Findings:
The prevalence of total diabetes was higher among men (15.9%) than among women (12.2%)
The prevalence of total, diagnosed, and undiagnosed diabetes increased with age.
The prevalence of total and diagnosed diabetes was higher in Hispanic adults and African American adults.
The prevalence of total, diagnosed, and undiagnosed diabetes increased with weight.
How could the diabetes community help close this gap?
Since they keep changing the threshold at which diabetes is diagnosed, lowering the threshold as the number of endocrinologists produced increases so that they will all have a job, the number of undiagnosed patients varies with the definition, which is not medically precise for type 2 patients.
For type 1 patients it is astonishing that anyone has this acute onset disease with its dramatic polyuria and polydipsia without knowing it.
Not all type 1 patients present with acute onset. My onset was slow, over a year from first symptoms before an actual diagnosis was made. It wasn’t until the end that period at age 30 that I experienced polyuria and polydipsia.
I understand slow onset T1D is fairly common in adults. It wasn’t until about 15-20 years ago that the term LADA or latent autoimmune diabetes in adults emerged to describe this slow onset diabetes.
Adult onset T1 seems quite common and can be slow onset.
In my LADA facebook group I am seeing so many stories of extended misdiagnosis.
People diagnosed with T2 for years, and only finally getting t1 diagnoses when they present in DKA.
Drs refusing to test for T1 even when people don’t respond to typical type 2 meds and diet.
One person recently said her dr insisted she was T2, despite having low c-peptide and being antibody positive - and left her with blood sugars in the 200 - 300 range. She found a new dr and was finally treated properly.
Patient to patient information sharing on social media can be helpful in encouraging people to get correct diagnoses and treatment, and in raising awareness of the importance of monitoring blood glucose and Hba1c regularly.
