I was diagnosed with type 1 at 14, over the past few years of going through many ups and downs I can usually always tell if my blood sugar is too high or too low. When I’m too low, it’s the typical shaky, sweaty, almost drunk feeling. But when I’m too high I’ve noticed other things, for example; I get a completely different look to my face, I just look weird… and if I’m too high I don’t have much control of my bladder at all, if I have to go upstairs to get to the bathroom it’s a no go (tmi, I know), but that makes me think… I can totally think of times when I was a child that I felt sick and I would now attribute that sickness to diabetes, I also had a hoooorrrrible bed wetting problem when I was younger that literally didn’t stop until I was diagnosed with type 1 and started injections. Also, I’ve looked at all of my childhood pictures and there are a lot of them that I see that exact look that I have when I’m too high… just some weird things that I’ve noticed.
My high blood sugar sell-off is the dry mouth. As soon as I get that I know a storm is coming.
The uncontrollable bladder is an easy tell as well. I don't know of any looks I have, but my friends can usually pick me off when I'm not okay (so im guessing they see something that I don't).
I was diagnosed at 12 and I'm 24 now. I have no memory whatsoever of my life before diabetes anymore. Has been that way for a while.
I has symptoms for many years also on and off. I have read plenty of other people's accounts of this here at tud.
I was diagnosed at 9 and I only had symptoms for weeks before diagnosis. It progressed from being unquenchably thirsty to being too tired to run around the playground to losing weight and feeling sick to my stomach, all over the course of a few weeks. If I had any symptoms earlier, they were so subtle that no one noticed.
I remember the unquenchable thirst well. I only remember being constantly thirsty at school, during the night at home, and at friends' homes - but not during the summer break where we travelled back east. My parents also only noticed the thirst a week or two after school had started back up in September. I was diagnosed in early October, when my blood sugar was high enough that I was admitted to hospital for four days. So I do think my symptoms came on pretty quickly.
i was diagnosed at 17 and had symptoms most my life before hand. nausea after eating, peeing all day, head aches, mood swings, excessive thirst, terrible breathing, motivation and fitness. this has all stopped now thankfully, god bless my doctor
This is the first time I have seen someone else mention dry mouth as a key symptom. I am an older adult who was diagnosed last summer in DKA and dry mouth was one of my symptoms in the weeks before being admitted to the hospital. But we were overseas for our daughter’s wedding and I just kept plugging along–it was hot, I was walking a lot, etc. My husband says that if I’d been complaining of thirst, he would have had mego to the doctor as soon as we got home.
Most of my life is “before diabetes” and sometimes that’s really hard, especially when family and friends are enjoying seconds at dinner and desserts and pizza and adult beverages. My heart goes out to all children and young people with T1 (and your parents, too).