Thanks for the encouragement! How frustrating to be dismissed like that.
I am certainly planning on advocating for my best interests, but at this point I feel I can afford to wait. I am still gathering information and get reasonable control just through diet and exercise. I do understand the risks involved in not following through with determining whether I have LADA or type 2, so I will be active when I am convinced it is called for.
Thanks again for your encouragement. This forum has been wonderful for keeping me focused and not feeling like I'm making mountains out of mole hills.
It is ridiculous and dangerous to delay a diagnosis of LADA, which is Type 1 diabetes. If you have LADA/T1D, who cares about getting life insurance or long term care when you need to get appropriate treatment!?
CQJ, have you heard of autoimmune gestational diabetes? I wrote a blog about autoimmune GD that you may find interesting. Many, many women here on TuD developed gestational diabetes which actually turned out to be Type 1 diabetes/LADA (pregnancy was "the straw that broke the camel's back).
PumpGirl, your previous endo was wrong, there is nothing "rare" about LADA. The only "rare" thing is for someone with LADA to be correctly diagnosed and not misdiagnosed as having Type 2. LADAs make up the vast majority of Type 1s. Childhood onset Type 1 diabetes is what is "rare."
And CQJ, for most people with LADA, early insulin treatment is absolutely the best way to go--improves metabolic control, prolongs the honeymoon period, and leads to better health outcomes. It is best to find out if indeed you have LADA/T1D, and get appropriate treatment (exogenous insulin).
Thanks for the info about the gestational diabetes - that is new to me and very interesting. I am certainly planning to follow-up with my doctor if my c-peptide/A1C are not what I think they should be. I do have a hard time advocating for myself (not for my kids, however), so it is something I need to psych myself up about. Of course, the information I am getting from this forum is providing just the kind of support I need.
It does feel wrong to just accept that someday I will have high blood sugars rather than trying to keep them good. That feeling is what drove me to the doctor in the first place.
If you can be your children's best advocate then there is no reason you can not be your own. You can not fight for what is appropriate for your family and not recognize that you are just as worthy of the same recognition, support, advocacy as you want for the ones you love.
Do not give up, be prepared to fight for what is right. A correct diagnosis is imperative to getting the right treatment.
The correct treatment means you will be there for the ones you love!
Forgive me please! But I have no idea what you are talking about? Lada, A1C, 5.7 fasting 94 can you explain pls? the replies are even more confusing to!
Sure, I'll do my best. LADA stands for Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults (I think) and it is considered a slow onset Type 1 form of diabetes. A1C is a blood test that measures an average blood sugar over the past 1 to 2 months. Fasting is your blood sugar after having not eaten for about 8 to 12 hours and is considered normal if it is below 100 (and diabetic if it is above 125). The issue is when the numbers for all these blood sugars are not normal, but not diabetic and how much carbohydrate restriction is necessary to keep the numbers in the normal or safe range.
Oh I see! I have read this stuff so many times and never had a clue as we don't get that kind of intervention here! I could not give up food for 8 hours. After 2 hours I hiccup, then get drowsy, then morose, unresponsive(kinda not here couldn't care!) and I think maybe 6 hours I'm in coma?
I have just posted a discussion with all my meds etc on it. Please take a look? Please encourage as many as possible to read it as well. I'm between the rock and the hard place and trying hard to do well.
Well, I got the results of my blood work today. My fasting was 87 mg/dl (woohoo!). My A1C is 5.8% (I'm actually quite disappointed since it was 5.9 in September and I have been VERY low carb since January. I had hoped to get it below 5.7.). And ... (drumroll, please) ... my c-peptide is 0.62 (range 0.80 - 3.10 ng/mL).
So, now I need to work up the energy and conviction to push and get the antibodies tested and a referral to an endo. I am not encouraged by my current doctor since her comment was that I clearly didn't need insulin since my A1C was so good (that A1C is after eating 10-15g of carbs a meal!) and told me to let her know when my fasting sugars go into the diabetes range (150's or higher!).
So, I got my answer and it was the one I expected. I've been trying to make myself feel good since I proved myself justified, but I think I would have been happier if all the results had come back normal. Right now I just feel exhausted.
Thanks to everyone for the information and support. My doctor agreed that I was reasonable in asking for the antibody testing with my low c-peptide. She even mentioned that I was doing really well with my numbers given the amount of insulin I have! So, next stop is the antibody testing (GAD, ICA, and IA-2).
hello, just wanted to say I have kind of similiar progress of diabetes as you, although I haven't given birth yet. I've had reactive hypos since I was 12 and they've gotten worse in past year so I went to the doctor who sent me to do OGTT which came back positive for diabetes, twice. They were bewildered (even sent me to abdom.ultrasound in case I have pancreas cancer) since my A1C at diagnosis was 5,5%, my blood pressure, cholesterol, weight.. were all in normal range, also, I'm 25. Eventually they finally sent me to do blood tests for C-Peptide and insulin (both came back normal, but on the low side) and ICA, IAA and GAT autoantibodies, and IAA came back positive. Now I'm diagnosed with "slow onset of type 1 diabetes" (we don't say LADA in our country, I guess). I would love to stay in contact with someone with similiar progress (reactive hypos) since it seems there are not many of us, also, to discuss about diet and things that could slow down progression.
Wish you all the best!
Hi! I still need to get the antibody testing, but I'm hoping to get the blood test tomorrow. I will know a little bit more once the results come back.
I was diagnosed with reactive hypoglycemia before I ever had high blood sugars (at least, no one ever told me my OGTT had high numbers - it was a 5 hour experience with blood drawn every 30 minutes and at about 3 hours I hit 54 mg/dl which qualified as a hypo). Since my father has reactive hypoglycemia (also diagnosed with a 5 hour OGTT when he was in his 20s), I was brought up on a good diet. After getting my own diagnosis I followed the doctor's instructions - small meals regularly spaced with lower carbohydrate intake (and very little simple sugars types) and always eating protein anytime I ate carbohydrates. I continued on this diet from 20 until 28 when I got pregnant. A friend who also had reactive hypos said that they went away while she was pregnant, but came back with a vengence when she was no longer pregnant. I found they went away while I was pregnant (hence, gestational diabetes), but stayed away afterwards as well. I think that was the point when my pancreas started really slowing down. After three rounds of gestational diabetes, I kept eating lower levels of refined carbs and exercising regularly. I suspect these things have helped me control my blood sugars (highs and lows) for many years. My pancreas still seems able to crank out sufficient insulin occasionally, but it seems to be getting more infrequent.
Good luck and I would be happy to talk about my years with the reactive lows, if you have any questions.
It sounds like you are finally getting somewhere and your doctor seems to be more educated about the different types of diabetes than most PCPs. It seems the popular assumption is for adults that are diagnosed later in life is to assume it is type 2. Let us know how you make out with the antibody testing!
Thank you a lot for your answer! Well I haven't been "officially" diagnosed (meaning, haven't done the actual test, ever) for hypos, my childhood doctor just said to eat something when that happens and that was it, for more than 10 years it was enough since my hypos happened once or twice per month, but in 2013 they became much more frequent.
I wonder about this as well. However, in my case I mainly had trouble with the reactive lows after my sugar spiked (all that insulin rushing to the rescue and getting there too late). I would expect that if the highs didn't happen, the lows wouldn't either.
I have been seriously doubting myself so I did the home experiment, but didn't catch what the HDC stood for. Needless to say my BS only rose to 123 at 1hr and I was shocked by that because I was expecting much higher. I checked the bottle of root beer and the first ingredient was HFC. Are you saying that Fructose doesn't cause the same elevation in BS? Just curious because I'm not sure if I would want to bother trying it again or just continue to watch my readings.
