What signs did you miss?

luceeloo

Well-Known Member
Messages
677
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Insulin
Another post about driving reminded me of something that happened two years ago, and in hindsight should have screamed DIABETES, but I remained happily oblivious. It got me thinking of all the missed signs of diabetes... and all those silly little things that happened, but we ignored or didn't realise were signs of Type 2. (No matter how embarassing, in my case!)

Summer 2012, Mr Luceeloo and I decided to go on an adventure to the Black Forest. We filled my trusty Astra up with all kinds of camping equipment, a new three room tent, an inflatable queen size bed (I refused to sleep on anything less), and set off for Dover. I'm the "designated driver" in our relationship, simply because I've always had a car, where he tends to buy superbikes and then occasionally has an old banger car to get him from a-to-b in the bad weather. So our plan was for us to share the driving.
I was fine in England, got to the ferry, ate a burger and chips and bought a massive bag of mini toblerone which we chomped on the journey. An hour into the french leg of the journey I began to feel so tired that Mr Luceeloo had to take over the driving, and I was in no shape for driving from thereon in until our destination about 10 minutes from the Swiss border.
We set up camp in a lovely mountain resort, in the middle of the forest, and the first night was full of torrential storms and thunder unlike anything I've ever heard. During the night I needed a wee, but wouldn't leave the tent as it was pouring it down. No matter, I had a she-wee device and peed into an evian bottle like a man.
The next morning when emptying the bottle it stunk literally like a brewery. It was extremely heady, and not unlike a real ale and I remember wondering what on earth was in German water to make my wee smell like it had been brewed? In hindsight the sugar in my urine had fermented in the 35 degree heat.

Another sign I had for years was a sweaty neck. It would only have to be a slightly warm day, and I'd be ringing wet of sweat.. but not normal sweat. This was sweat that smelled like baking biscuits, cakes, confectionary!

Finally, right before diagnosis, I developed an all over smell that permeated my entire body, but also my urine smelled the same... nothing horrendous or horrible, but EXACTLY like Yardley's English Rose spray. I couldn't figure out how a body spray I'd used once or twice, could have permeated my body permanently. In hindsight, Yardley's English Rose isn't dis-similar to Pear drops.

So there we go, Diabetes... probably the only disease that can make a person smell like a bakery, sweet shop, and pub!
 
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DiamondAsh

Well-Known Member
Messages
641
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Disregard for authority. Noise.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading that ... It made me giggle. thanks.
You have a way with words... lol

..... I haven't missed any signs as yet... I'm a bit ahead of the game. I'm treating myself for Diabetes and I don't even have it... I guess I'm too eager. :playful:
 

Carol-P

Member
Messages
24
Mike tried to tell me for quite some while that he thought I had diabetes, but I didn't really appreciate it and didn't really take it in. However, I really do know now that there were signs that I missed! For year or two I had been drinking more, especially after being out. I would come in and simply go to the water or, more often, for some squash or some milk awesome smoothy. The main one was my tiredness! The problem is, I don't sleep well anyway because of my eye condition. In fact, my sleep has been very, very poor and so often non-existent over many years. Each time I told the doctor of my tiredness and could hardly string two sentences together, he would change my sleeping pills and tell me that it was hardly surprising I felt so bad in view of the fact I was having such poor sleep! However, that didn't get me to the root of everything! Eventually I had a routine blood test at which point I was beginning to have so little energy that I could hardly walk across the room. In addition, my blood sugar was well up at 26! I was also becoming quite disorientated at times around our small bungalow and my concentration was through the roof!


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Jamrox

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,166
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Mushrooms
Garlic bread
Walking up steep hills
For 2 years I thought I was going through the menopause and having hot flushes , turns out when my blood sugar is high I get hot flushes, and very sweaty. Now its under control and Im cold lol.
I used to get a strange sensation in my mouth and drank to get rid of it so I didn't really get thirsty as such.
I used to feel awful about 3pm every day (2 hours after a lunch of sandwich and crisps) turns out my bs was raised .
My family say I asked them the same question over and over so I guess my concentration was rubbish.
Like I said under control now and hindsight is a wonderful thing.

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nannyg123

Well-Known Member
Messages
49
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
whingers
For 2 years I thought I was going through the menopause and having hot flushes , turns out when my blood sugar is high I get hot flushes, and very sweaty. Now its under control and Im cold lol.
I used to get a strange sensation in my mouth and drank to get rid of it so I didn't really get thirsty as such.
I used to feel awful about 3pm every day (2 hours after a lunch of sandwich and crisps) turns out my bs was raised .
My family say I asked them the same question over and over so I guess my concentration was rubbish.
Like I said under control now and hindsight is a wonderful thing.

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Ditto for me! Hot flushes during the day and night - sleeping in thin pj's with no duvet, window on night vent and heating off but still bathed in sweat! Always complaining to hubby that the woodburner made the lounge far too hot in the evenings. Actually went to GP asking for menopause test and just added in that I'd been drinking more for last few weeks so she ticked the D blood test box too. Think I already knew the result but didn't expect changes in diet and adding in exercise to stop the sweats so quickly and now the bedroom window is closed, winter duvet on, heating on and put arms under the covers during the night and the woodburner is going full pelt


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Jamrox

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,166
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Mushrooms
Garlic bread
Walking up steep hills
Nannyg123 glad it wasn't just me.
My family can't believe the difference its made .

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Jamrox

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,166
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Mushrooms
Garlic bread
Walking up steep hills

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popsy

Well-Known Member
Messages
522
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Dislikes
Crowds of people, my idea of hell would be a huge gathering of any sort!

Heights, scare me to death!
Liars, cheats. poseurs, any kind of violence, thieves and people who take advantage of others.

The way the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

Global warming, the melting ice caps, whaling..I mean what for?!

Cruelty

Having to give up my eat everything philosophy..and I really really dislike consequences.
Another post about driving reminded me of something that happened two years ago, and in hindsight should have screamed DIABETES, but I remained happily oblivious. It got me thinking of all the missed signs of diabetes... and all those silly little things that happened, but we ignored or didn't realise were signs of Type 2. (No matter how embarassing, in my case!)

Summer 2012, Mr Luceeloo and I decided to go on an adventure to the Black Forest. We filled my trusty Astra up with all kinds of camping equipment, a new three room tent, an inflatable queen size bed (I refused to sleep on anything less), and set off for Dover. I'm the "designated driver" in our relationship, simply because I've always had a car, where he tends to buy superbikes and then occasionally has an old banger car to get him from a-to-b in the bad weather. So our plan was for us to share the driving.
I was fine in England, got to the ferry, ate a burger and chips and bought a massive bag of mini toblerone which we chomped on the journey. An hour into the french leg of the journey I began to feel so tired that Mr Luceeloo had to take over the driving, and I was in no shape for driving from thereon in until our destination about 10 minutes from the Swiss border.
We set up camp in a lovely mountain resort, in the middle of the forest, and the first night was full of torrential storms and thunder unlike anything I've ever heard. During the night I needed a wee, but wouldn't leave the tent as it was pouring it down. No matter, I had a she-wee device and peed into an evian bottle like a man.
The next morning when emptying the bottle it stunk literally like a brewery. It was extremely heady, and not unlike a real ale and I remember wondering what on earth was in German water to make my wee smell like it had been brewed? In hindsight the sugar in my urine had fermented in the 35 degree heat.

Another sign I had for years was a sweaty neck. It would only have to be a slightly warm day, and I'd be ringing wet of sweat.. but not normal sweat. This was sweat that smelled like baking biscuits, cakes, confectionary!

Finally, right before diagnosis, I developed an all over smell that permeated my entire body, but also my urine smelled the same... nothing horrendous or horrible, but EXACTLY like Yardley's English Rose spray. I couldn't figure out how a body spray I'd used once or twice, could have permeated my body permanently. In hindsight, Yardley's English Rose isn't dis-similar to Pear drops.

So there we go, Diabetes... probably the only disease that can make a person smell like a bakery, sweet shop, and pub!

Wonderful post Lucee.

What did I miss? Absobloodylutely EVERYTHING! I was totally and completely ignorant of diabetes, no-one in my family had it so far as I know but both grandparents were dead before I was born so who really knows? I do remember the tiredness which, as you say, in hindsight should have been a red flag. I remember a particular drive. We were in the middle of nowhere, we had been away for about a week and were on our way home after a lovely time stopping at various motels. It was after we had stopped for some ham rolls and a bit of cake with a cuppa that I began to feel not just tired but like I had been drugged! I was convinced I was going to fall asleep at the wheel and stupidly thought it would wear off and I just kept driving! What a nit wit :meh: It wasn't until a routine visit to the doc for something totally other that she asked had I had a GTT. I said what's that and we were off on the marathon trek we know as T2 diabetes.

Since then my diabetes and I have been up hill and down dale, been battered by gales and rested in balmy sunshine, come to staggering revelations and had a right brain bashing which at this age is **** hard work believe me!

All's right with the world at the moment so on we go, my buddy and me, staggering off into the diabetes wilderness but at least armed with weapons this time! :happy:
 
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Tron2112

Well-Known Member
Messages
61
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Two years ago I got an iPhone and was using it instead of my desktop PC for face book and chatting. When I started suffering from occasions of blurred vision I thought it was caused by reading that tiny screen. That should have tipped me off.

Getting up three to four times through the night to wee, should have been a clue but no.

Thirst - I would panic if I didn't have ready access to water to "wet my whistle". My mouth always felt dry.

Those were the obvious ones I missed. Since I started controlling blood sugar last year I am amazed at how many other things stopped that I'd just suffered. They were also signs that I'd missed:

Body odour
Horrible smelly ear wax - I thought I had mites it smelled so bad
Wheezing / asthma
Thrush
Urinary infections
Bad breath
Abscess inflammation
Carbuncles
Ankle swelling
Anxiety (lump in throat feeling)

Things are so much better now. I wish I'd been diagnosed ten years ago!




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lesroses

Member
Messages
8
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Tv with all repeats, slowing going off both Coronation Street, Emmerdale
God im reading my life here cut this short : Had a EPILECTIC FIT IN MY SLEEP thankfully my husband is a first aider as i stopped breathing they then found why I HAD A BENIGN BRAIN TUMOUR FRONT LOBE removed loss of ten years memory. In that time I went through THE CHANGE 3 TIMES? each time the gps said its my body getting back to normal ?????????? They putme on high dos of EPILEM TABS 1 THOUSAND A DAY which I found myself drugged up could not think etc cut short here as the saying goes lifes short???? Anyway due to the reduction of my EPILEM KNOW 1X500 a day they put me on HRT PATCHES last year due to me FEELING PREGNANT SORE BOOBS AND MORNING SICKNESS which after I pickedmy hubby up of the floor nearly passing out when he seen my head over the loo well you guessed right I was NOT PREGENT as I had a HYSTRECTROMARY (sorry spelt wrong)anyway cut short again EPILEM lowered to 300mg one daily hip hip horray GOD I FEEL NORMAL I THINK whoops just got told just before Christmas I am know TYPE 2 DIABECTIC am at a loss at this time as it is just diet but I feel as if I am at a loss, I still have hot sweats, thirst but mostly my face has come out in spots some with little white/red ones I flush on my face and and it becomes itchy and tender to touch HELP ANYONE OUT THERE????????????????
 

Jamrox

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,166
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Mushrooms
Garlic bread
Walking up steep hills
Lesroses you certainly have been through the mill x
I to am diet controlled diabetic and you will find masses of really useful info on this forum. It has helped me enormously.
May I suggest that you buy a blood sugar monitor , if your GP won't give you one , testing my blood sugar to see what different foods make my sugars rise is one of the most important things I have found , that , along with reducing my carbohydrate intake , been of the carb wagon last week but getting it under control nearly now, has helped me.
I thought I was going through the change because of the horrible sweats but don't have them often now that my sugars are under control .
Good luck x .

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