The low carb would throw insulin levels down. Ask if they think a fed insulin test would be better. An OGTT at 1, 2 and 3 hour. You would need to eat 150g minimum of carb a day for a week before test, to get your insulin response adjusted back to carbs.
you may be a slow onset T1 or you put your T2 into remission, as indicated by your A1c?
You don’t sound the normal insulin resistant T2, if you have low insulin blood levels. They max out their pancreas production.and see very high insulin levels, till the pancreas fails
Is the “putting T2 into remission” an actual, real phenomenon? I suppose it could be possible, but it just seems unlikely to me (although I’m no endocrinologist). The only place I’ve read about it in semi-plausible form is from the British journalist who went on a starvation diet and dropped like 30% of his bodyweight. Honestly, I don’t think I can do that! I have lost weight from being on a low-carb diet, but I’m currently trying to stay stable (I am losing weight slowly on a “maintenance” calorie diet), and I’m under 20% bodyfat (I am much more heavily muscled than average, being a former athlete, so I am in the “overweight” by BMI category but quite lean).
I really suspect that the most likely thing going on in my family is some type of MODY or “idiopathic LADA” if such a thing exists. My great-grandmother, grandmother, all became diabetic in their 40s while being lean, healthy, and active. My mother is not insulin dependent but many other people in my family are. Youngest brother was diagnosed LADA at 23, my younger brother was pre-diabetic at 32 while being fit (he’s one of those Spartan-race/Crossfit maniacs). My only real concern at this point is on two fronts: a) I’m a control freak and want to know what is going to happen over the next year or five; and b) I have a two month old son and would really like to know if he’s at elevated risk.
Knowing the answers to a and b aren’t going to change what I’m doing: keep eating low-carb, keep exercising (which I’d do anyways), and keep testing frequently to try and detect if something changes. Thanks for the reply! I know that 5.1 is considered “excellent” control, I just wish it didn’t come at the price of eating so low-carb that my thinking is fuzzy and my exercise is affected!
I was diagnosed T2 in 2005. I wasn’t really overweight but I clearly had diabetes. And over the years a low carb diet and aggressive exercise did a great job of managing my diabetes. But T2 medications were ineffective. And despite my best efforts I always bordered on what would be the threshold for poor control. Eventually I moved on to insulin six years ago. My last (and worst) c-peptide was 0.4 ng/dl, low enough to qualify me for pump by a good margin. Since moving to insulin I have been very well controlled and while I still do low carb I hate to admit it, I backed of off the aggressive exercise.
My endo supported testing me antibodies (negative) and for MODY (also negative). Over the last two years my endo has started coding me (the codes used for insurance) as a T1. In the end, all this mess of diagnosis has at times left me confused. I eventually came to the conclusion that T2 is simply diabetes of unknown cause and that what really mattered was getting the proper treatment. So today I’ve come to accept my endo calling me a T1 so that I can get proper treatment but in my mind I am a T2 because I don’t have a specific diagnosis of my diabetes (and probably never will).
Yes, I totally see where you’re coming from Brian, and agree about the “catch-all” nature of Type 2 to an extent. I’m perfectly happy to be called whatever the doctors want for the moment, as long as I am able to manage my BG in the “minimal-complication” zone. I think my doctors currently have me diagnosed as “uncontrolled Type 2,” which is hilarious given my level of control. But they did that so my insurance company will allow for more lab tests in the future. Apparently, they don’t pay for C-peptide, insulin tests, antibody tests, and other diagnostics if someone is classified as “Type 2, well controlled.”
Although I’d much rather eat a “modest” carb diet, I can’t do that and maintain my targets, so it’s low-carb for me. I’m trying on Peanut-butter bread later today
@rgcainmd, it would be tempting to ask my doctor to re-classify me for the sake of getting my son into one of those trials, and I’m pretty sure she would do so if I asked. She still thinks I’m extremely-early stage LADA in the honeymoon period. If things get worse for me, I’ll definitely ask for that re-coding and then sign Dylan up.
I’m not completely sure there’s actually any enforcement mechanism other than a questionnaire… it might be worth just trying to sign them up anyway… I don’t exactly remember what was involved, there was kind of a run around in my case bc I’m in Alaska and they had a few logIstics problems to sort out up here
this will get your head around removing liver and pancreas fat and allowing it to function better, to the point of normal. They expect this to continue while the gut fat remains off. they also say you can be thin and still have internal gut fat and talk of a personal ‘fat threshold’ where after that, pancreas function fails
