I am a 72 year old woman recently diagnosed with LADA. I have always been very healthy so this is a huge blow. I’d appreciate someone maybe around my age to talk with about their journey and how they have managed their world emotionally. Right now just feel very sad.
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Marilyn, first, welcome to the community. I hope you’ll be feeling the warm virtual arms of the family here soon, just as I did when I joined here 7 years ago. We have many here w LADA, and also many with other types of diabetes who know a lot about LADA. Our founder @askmanny is a LADA. Here is a post by one of our members that I think may help you
and I encourage you to join any discussion here that interests you. I’m sending you a big basket of hugs.
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Welcome to the club that no one ever asks to join! While I’m neither your age, nor diagnosed as LADA (though my doctors still think so at times…), I certainly know that feeling of sadness well. I was diagnosed on my 50th birthday, exactly 3 and a half years ago. It’s 3.5 years and I still feel sad about it at times… They called it Type 2 and put me on oral medications for a while, though after 4 months - and since then - I went on insulin. I have been anything but “typical” as was tested for LADA (but negative for antibodies) so it is what it is…
This diagnosis is not a death sentence or a precursor to all sorts of future problems. It’s something that you and I have to manage, like we do all other aspects of our lives. Coming to this sit, you’ve made a good first step in that direction. My approach was to learn as much as I could about diabetes, its management, etc. I figured that the best “tool” at my disposal is knowledge and I’ve set out to get all I can to better manage my health. There have been, and will continue to be, many ups and downs - but we have to just move forward to the next day, meal, challenge, etc.
Again, you’ve come to the right place. There are a lot of people here far more knowledgeable and experienced than I am to help with support, good advice, etc. I wish you good health on your journey, and will help if I can in any way.
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Welcome to Tu and diabetes and all that @Marilyn_Armour! It’s probably not where anyone wants to be but if you were just dx’ed and found Tu already, you are really in the right spot! I was dx’ed in 1984 and didn’t really connect with anyone with diabetes in any depth until 2008 after many trials and almost as many errors!! @Zoe was dx’ed as an adult and she was on a journey, central America I recall, when she was dx’ed!
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As others have said, you’ve absolutely come to the right place. This community is a bottomless well of support, both technical and mental. No matter what aspect of diabetes you may be struggling with at any given moment, there is someone here who’s been there and is happy to share.
As I have said so many times it bores people, about 2% of what I know about diabetes management was learned from the medical profession; the other 98% is from self-study and communicating with other diabetics in this wonderful community.
Support means different things at different times. Sometimes you need to know how others have dealt with a specific technical or physiological issue, and sometimes you just need to converse with someone who gets it. Both kinds of support are freely available here, in unlimited abundance.
Welcome to the family!
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Welcome to the tribe! You’ve come to a great place for support and information. I look forward to “seeing” you around here.
Hi Marilyn and welcome to TuDiabetes. I’m Zoe (no @ in front of my name!). I’m close to your age - 67 and was diagnosed when I was 58. I was one month from retirement and preparing to move to Guatemala so it was the last thing I expected or wanted! I wasn’t as lucky as you and was misdiagnosed as Type 2 and put on oral meds which worked for 15 months and then my BG started to go up and up and up and I came to this site and others and finally correctly recognized I was LADA and began insulin. I always say how much I admire the Type 1’s (LADA is just a slower onset type 1) who are diagnosed when they’re younger, because they deal with D at such busy times of life. I’m grateful that I only work part time now and have the time to deal with it. If managed well, type 1 doesn’t have to affect your life and health in a negative way…except for that time drain of course…lol. Stick around and don’t hesitate to ask questions and if you want to e-mail me as I’m not on TuD much anymore you can e-mail me at zoelula2 the “at sign” gmaildot com. (I believe e-mails get blocked out so I write it that way). Take care!
Zoe
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Hi there,
6 months ago on my 60th birthday after a few weeks of feeling dreadful my sister checked my blood sugar. It was through the roof…in high 20s at each check over a weekend. Long story short, I was immediately put on insulin. Have been healthy all my life…never on any medications, active, ride horses competitively and now have diabetes! The way I coped was to become googles best friend. I read and read, experimented and decided to low carb…not stupidly but I have a target of less than 100 carbs a day and cook fresh and eat well. In fact after 6 months I feel energised and happy. Finding it possible to do everything I want and have lots of energy. My A1c surprised my Drs by being in the normal range last time after being so high that they were thinking hospital 6 months ago. Any help I can give please ask. Don’t be sad. Stress effects my levels badly. I don’t do stress any more…hehe. Embrace insulin as a friend. It has sure been good to me.
Kind and happy thoughts coming your way from New Zealand.
Jill
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@Marilyn_Armour, you’ve come to a good spot for solid info and emotional support. I was diagnosed with T1D at the age of 30. I’m now 62. They didn’t call it LADA back then but looking back my diabetes was slow onset in an adult. One of the best pieces of advice and emotional wisdom I ever received came from a book written by T1D, Chuck Eichten, The Book of Better: Life with Diabetes Can’t Be Perfect. Make It Better. It’s an easy read with lots of humorous graphics.
Many here have discovered that “perfect” can be the enemy of “good enough.” And that touches on the emotional side of diabetes. I recommend that you learn all you can about diabetes and realize that doctors and other medical professionals are very limited resources.
As you start to learn how to eat, exercise, and dose insulin you can become good at it. This proficiency can instill a safe and positive emotional health. No one like to participate in anything that they do poorly. So your best option is to choose to do well. That not only helps emotionally but physically as well.
Learn all you can, allow yourself mistakes, persist, and try to remain positive. You can not only survive diabetes but do very well despite it. Welcome to TuDiabetes!
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Welcome to tudiabetes, Marilyn. You’ve come to a good place to find both support and answers to a lot of questions you might have about diabetes.
I was misdiagnosed as a type 2 in 2011 at age 70 with an A1c of 11.5. My PCP treated me as a type 2 on oral meds for a year and a half. The meds didn’t help sufficiently, so I ended up basically starving myself to get my A1c under 7.0. I lost 17 pounds I couldn’t afford to lose, getting down to a scrawny 105 pounds before I decided I had to eat more carbs, regardless of my blood sugar. My doctor refused to put me on insulin, saying that she was afraid I’d try to adjust my own doses.
I asked about being tested for antibodies, as I’d read online about LADA and was suspicious that I might have that type. But the doctor didn’t know anything about it and kept wanting to try something else. Besides, at that time none of the endocrinologists in our area would accept a referral for anyone with an A1c under 7.0. So I had to allow my BG to get over that if I wanted to see anyone who might be more qualified to treat diabetes.
As soon as I did see the endo the first time, he put me on insulin, even before the results of the antibody tests came back confirming LADA. He gave me a starting dose of Lantus and starting I:C ratio for bolus, but then was going to turn me back over to my PCP. As you might guess from the prior experience I’d had with her, I had absolutely no faith that she could handle my diabetes. I suspect that she just uses a set dose or a sliding scale with her patients, rather than using a carb ratio. So I bought the book “Using Insulin” by John Walsh and used the information in it to test and adjust my doses before going back to her three months later. Then I just told her what my doses were. Between that book, the diabetes message boards, and online research, I feel I have my diabetes under pretty good control, with an A1c of 5.5 to 5.9 ever since going on insulin.
You will no doubt get plenty of response to any questions you might post on the site, but if you wish to contact me personally, feel free to message me on this site. I’d be happy to be of assistance. I’m quite new to this site myself, so I don’t know if there are any special rules about whether a new person can send messages right away. On some sites one has to be a member for a while or have made a certain number of posts first. Perhaps someone can tell us if that is the case here.
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Welcome! I was diagnosed almost 10 years ago in my middle 40s. My GP called it LADA. My endo called it ‘slender type 2’. Eventually, testing showed that my pancreas was on the road to zero, so it all got sorted out. Now, I’m on an insulin pump and I love it.
During the years when my pancreas was still making insulin, it came in fits and starts, so sometimes I’d go for a walk and my BG would be perfect at the end. Sometimes I’d take the exact same walk and my BG would be very low. The effects of meals also had a wide latitude of BG readings. I learnt to keep my meter with me at all times!
If there’s one thing I’d like you to hear, I’d hold your hands, look you in the eyes and tell you that it’s not your fault. You didn’t bring this on yourself, any more than I brought on chicken pox when I was a child. My pancreas and I had a good run, and then a virus came along and my immune system went overboard. Now I wear my pancreas on my belt. Some days that seems sad, but most days I’m so happy that all this… stuff is available to me.
Medical technology is wonderful these days. Perhaps even better is the ability of people in far-flung places to gather and chat about… well, about everything.
–buck
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we had Chuck here a few years ago for a live interview and I remember really enjoying him