A person commented and thought this was a rare type of diabetes. It isn’t. Most of the DKA’s admitted in the US are of this type. No research has really been done to determine how prevalent this is but you have to recognize that for every case where it is bad enough to cause hospitalization there has to be many multiples of it in existence. It’s my guess that there are probably close to a half million of us, mostly of African, Hispanic and Native origin. Course I could be wrong. We could use some research here.
Mike
Is this similar to LADA? They can be diagnosed in DKA, but often do not immediately require insulin (so it looks like type 2), but then eventually insulin is needed. I’m curious as to how this is different.
Do you think people don’t produce insulin and then start producing it again?
KPD is a broad category. Some of the LADA’s I know had DKA. The key to understanding this is glucose toxicity and the effect of high blood sugar on certain diabetics. The beta cells don’t die but completely shutdown all secretion of insulin, all KPD’s have this in common. This puts them in DKA. Insulin is the standard therapy for this After 2 to 12 weeks of insulin, the pancreas will secrete insulin again.
Why don’t you think so? does this seem impossible?
Mike
We are a rare breed. I started as in insulin dependant with dka took insulin lantus and humalog for a year and after that for two years nothing. So let’s not dismiss something if we have not seen it before. Trust me I have looked for people like me and I think mike is the only other one that I have found.
