Questions about the honeymoon

I'm glad that you caught it.

I'm getting that impression from my endo always telling me how I am the expert on my diabetes. It used to be a scary concept to grasp however.

I reread my initial statement and it was confusing! I started insulin injections right after diagnosis with small doses. I've been on that plan for 3 months now and I've seen a lot of positive effects! Thank you for your advice!

I was reading the Nutrition Action Healthletter, which had a special feature on diabetes. I read the risk factors, and I had none of them. I thought, "Cool, I'll never get that lame disease." Then I read the symptoms... "Uh oh, I have ALL of those" (excessive thirst, excessive urination, fatigue, unexplained weight loss).

I actually had a meter that I'd gotten years before when I suspected reactive hypoglycemia, so I pulled it out to test. My fasting was 240 and postprandial was 410. Yikes! I didn't even have a doctor at that time, so I had to find one to tell him I had diabetes.

Despite the pretty high initial numbers, greatly reducing my carb intake (along with metformin) kept my numbers in line. However, if I went even a relatively small amount over what my pancreas could cover, my numbers would skyrocket. So I made sure to stick to a specific number of carbs, which were gradually reduced as my insulin production waned over the years (for example: I started at 45 carbs each for lunch and dinner in 2001, but was down to 12-15 carbs before I went on insulin earlier this year).

If I were to do it again, I would choose to go on insulin years earlier (which my previous doctor never even suggested).

Yes, we are all different. Some of us do great on low carb, and some find that any food at all pushes things way high. If I could eat no carbs at all (not possible, healthy or feasible) and very little protein (also not possible, healthy or feasible), ie. only eat fat and were to exercise a lot I think I could have decent numbers without insulin.

But one has to live and having these tools on hand to get excellent control, I am so pleased I have learned how to use them and I can keep diabetes as a 'condition' I have, rather than a 'disease'.

LADA and Type 1 are basically the same, it's just that with LADA your beta cells are destroyed more slowly (that's the "Latent" part). Unfortunately this doesn't always mean that insulin will be postponed; I am LADA and was put on insulin (Lantus) almost immediately. 10 months after diagnosis I was put on Humalog. My C-Peptide is 0.89, so I'm still making some insulin, but it's not enough to keep my numbers down.

I was dx'd 11 months ago. About two weeks ago my blood sugars abruptly dropped, and my Endo thinks that this is my honeymoon. I had previously thought that honeymoons happened immediately after diagnosis, but now I'm learning that this isn't always the case. You say yours happened almost a year after diagnosis -- if you don't mind my asking, how did you know you were entering a honeymoon period, and did your insulin requirements get significantly higher after it ended?

I was on insulin (type 1, not LADA) from day 1, but during the honeymoon phase I took very little, maybe 9-10 units of lantus and almost no bolus. It continued for just over a year, and then quickly ended within a span of 3 weeks. It became very clear very fast that it was ending.