1 or 2
- Thread starter Osmond
- Start Date
Great question. I was referred to the diabetes clinic by my GP with a BG reading of 19.8 and put on insulin straight away so you could argue I am type 1, but given that my insulin requirements are really low at the moment (8 units of lantus once a day and 0 to 5 units of novo-rapid at meal times) so you could say I am an insulin dependent type 2. I have had no other tests other than my hba1c and am intrigued to know how they could tell if I am type 1 or type 2.
Hi. There's an awful lot of initial guesswork that goes on. Some GPs don't know about Late onset Type 1 so place you as a Type 2 if you weren't Type 1 near birth. Others aren't sure but for whatever reason don't do any tests. Basically if you are not overweight and quite young; perhaps below 30 yrs of age, then you may well be Late onset T1 (LADA). Two tests which help define this are the GAD anti-body test and the C-peptide test. The former tests for the most common islet cell antibody and the latter checks your insulin level. The GAD test is not definitive i.e. if it is negative you may still have anti-bodies. There is a spectrum of diabetes types between straight T1 and overweight, insulin resistant T2. If you show high levels of sugar at diagnosis you may well be put on insulin for a short period but could be a fairly typical T2 especially if overweight. In many ways the treatment regimes are similar with insulin following tablets if the sugars remain high.
