I had a check up last week and had to tell the doctor what labs I wanted (trying to find a new doctor and I don’t think this is the one for me), she was only going to run a cholesterol due to my having high ones in the past and I had no idea where I was now. But T2 is in my family along with RA and Leukemia, since my Husband was just receintly diagonsed with T1 I really wanted to know what my numbers were, I haven’t been to a doctor for 4 years and I am now 49 and thought it was time to get checked. I was a bit confused why the doctor didn’t order a full range of blood tests but she didn’t. I got my results back and I am really bothered by them, I know they are not high but for how I eat I think they are high. My BG was 114, when I check my fasting numbers in the mornings I am always 114, due to it being over 100 the doctor said it was high and had them also do a A1c which came out to a 5.6 (Estimated average overall is 114). I know that isn’t yet a pre-D but what bothers me is that I eat NO Sugar and I am very VERY low carb, less than 20 carbs a day but more like 10. I have a very hard time losing weight, my thyroid came back as a .86 (.5 to 5.00 is normal) so that is within the normal range. I walk 2.25 miles a day and my blood was drawn about 2 hours after I did my walk, mind you I walk at 3.2 mph with a 4.5 incline on a treadmill takes me approx 35 minutes to complete it.
At the time of my appt I told the doctor I was very low carb and didn’t eat sugar, potatoes, pasta, bread… and her message to me in the letter with my test results was “I needed to cut my sugar and carbs…” So she wasn’t listening to me or she didn’t believe me, HOW can I cut more sugar or carbs from my diet??? I eat only whole foods, I use stevia, splenda or agave as sweeteners but I do eat some low carb bars and low carb packaged mixes. If my average is 114 and my BG in the morning is 114 then am I staying at 114, retorical question I am going to start taking my BG’s to figure out where I am so I can get a better picture of where I am the rest of the day. I am a bit confused at my numbers, I was worried about my cholesterol because my past ones have been in the 250’s but this one was 188 which really suprized me, good suprize but now my BG is confusing me.
Due to the fact my husband has T1 I have done a lot of research on “D” as he couldn’t as his was diagnosed late stage and he has a really hard time reading due to the damage that has been done to his retna’s. So I am still a layman and most of you know way more than I do but I do know my way around some of this and my numbers just don’t make sense to me.
You need a Glucose Tolerance Test (GTT) This is where they challenge your pancreas by having you drink a large amount of glucose and then noting how your blood sugar responds.
You can partially simulate this by eating a meal with some fast acting carbs and testing pre meal and 1 and 2 hours after. A normal person would not go over 140 and probably not even over 125.
Since you are eating such a low carb diet you may be successfully treating pre diabetes or full blown diabetes. This could explain the good A1C with an elevated fasting. The fasting number is often the last to go making it of limited use for early intervention.
Thanks BadMoonT2, I will find a new doctor and have them run that test on me, I remember having to have one of them when I was preg with my kids! I really don’t think we need two Diabetics in the house, my husband is bad enough, LOL!!!
It is really sad that the medical world is so stupid when it comes to diabetes (i’m sure they aren’t too smart on other things too!)! My husbands doctor was great, first diagnosed him with T2 but within 3 weeks of the oral meds not working he ran more tests and found it was actually T1. His eye doctor will still not change his charts diagnoses from T2 to T1 because he said since he didn’t get it as a child then he is really a T2 that is insulin resistant, I was really taken back by that statement! My husbands pancreas doesn’t work AT ALL! Sometimes it’s just best to nod and roll your eyes!! THEY DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING!!!
You got that right, Janet…especially when it comes to diabetes some of them don’t know much of ANYTHING!
I hate to say it, but I would say there is a very high possibility that either your doctor automatically writes that sentence on a chart when blood sugar is above a certain number, or he didn’t write it at all and his lab tech or nurse follows a similar protocol. I think doctors these days work on a series of “protocols”, when A happens, do B. If a result is .8 above write sentence A, etc. It’s all nonsense. But please do not take this sentence as having any bearing on your situation if you are the rare person without diabetes that actually watches their carbs so well!
I agree that an OGTT is called for. Unfortunately, the down side of eating low carb is that it can mask a problem. If your A1C is 5.6 with low carb, it would probably be in pre-diabetes range without. But bottom line is you are doing exactly what you should be if you WERE diagnosed pre-diabetic and it just bears watching. Personally I think there are many people on here of both types that would love to have a diabetic spouse, because they would “get it”. But I still don’t wish that on you! (The club that nobody wants to join)
Zoe, My husband said the same thing about the letter from the doctor but she made a real connection between our conversation about cholesteral in the letter so I think she wrote at least part of it herself.
I have been a low carb eater (not a faithful as I wish) for about 8 years now, I had a little lapse for a about a year, my only real empty nest symptom and quiting smoking didn’t help that time frame either! I quit though, that’s a good thing!! When I saw my test results I thought the same thing and still do, a A1c of 5.6 is just too high for the foods I eat expecially in the past 3 months as I have been so careful since my husband was diagnosed. If my husband didn’t know better he would have thought I was a behind the door eater but he knows how hard I work at eating better as to not gain more weight. Again I have a very hard time losing weight, I am over weight but not obese and it takes very little carbs to get me to lose a few pounds a month. As I always say, I didn’t gain it in a month so it will take more than a month to get it off. Stress of the past 6 months is also part of this as I know stress can do a lot of things to your BS’s, Married in Sept, 10 and Oct ,10 my husband was diagnosed with late stage T1. He was extremely ill when he was diagnosed and we had no idea it could be T1, as we all know the information out there is so bad about Diabetes. How can a man at 6.0 and 180 lbs (down to 140 at diagnoses) that eats good foods get T1. Well we now know HOW, there is so much bad information in the real world as you already know!
Anyway, I think I will see if my Husbands doctor will give me a 2nd opinion and maybe rerun some tests and order proper ones. It really did blow me away that I had to request blood tests from the doctor, she said that she wasn’t going to run the BG because I didn’t have family members with “D”. I said did you read my chart, my grandmother and most my aunts on the same side has or had T2. She just looked at me as if I was in outerspace! I knew then she wasn’t the right doctor for me, my old doctor left so I am on the search of a new one. She was a little put out when I asked her do make sure to do a leukimia screening, my mother passed way from complications of it (she was 45 when she was diagnosed) and my other grandmother had it before she died. Wouldn’t you think my request was understandable?
As to the CLUB nobody wants to join, it’s not a great CLUB but the people that are part of it are great!! It’s not what anyone wants but if you have it you need to know how to deal with it. I do “get it” in regards to being Diabetic, no I don’t have it but living with a T1 makes me a bit more of a expert then most that doesn’t have it and some that do have it. We have a partnership and Diabetes is part of it!!
