What lead to your diagnosis?

[John506]

Not sure if this has been discussed before, but thought it would be an interesting thread, and could be useful to people who think they have symptoms of a diabetic!

Thought I would start it off.

I started by getting very weak in work (my job involves heavy lifting). I was getting very tired, very quickly.

Then I started waking up about 4 or 5 times a night, with a mouth as dry as a bone and needing a wee desperately each time!

Then I was always sleepy tired, going to bed every night around 8 or 9pm (which was highly unusual for me, always in bed around 1am).

I was always a great lover of Lucozade, so being tired I was drinking around 3Litres of the stuff a day. which was infact having the opposite effect.

One day I went to the fridge to get some Lucozade and I just collapsed on the floor, just didnt have the energy to stand up. I was sitting on the floor for a few minutes before I could even move.

That night I started Googling my symptoms and they all pointed to diabetes, so I went to Lloyd's Pharmacy and got a free diabetes test, which my blood sugar was 32.6, and they automatically put me in a hospital bed over night!

I'm now a type 1 diabetic doing very well, have a very good hba1c, hitting the gym most nights and eating very healthy!!

I would like to hear anyone elses story from being diagnosed to how they are getting on now!!

Thanks!

John.

 

[Iain77]

Hi John

I was similar.
I was feeling tired and needing a wee ,usually when i had a bus load of passengers in the middle of a town with no toilets about .
Being so tired i drank energy drinks Lucozade and Red Bull as if they were never going to be sold again...I think i was sort off addicted on them.

I was feeling sick and couldnt keep my eyes open i was just soooooo tired,
ended up in A & E with a bloog sugar reading of 32.

Told i was lucky i never went into a diabetic coma.

Iain

 

[John506]

Hi Iain,

Curious to hear what happened to your job? (guessing you where a bus driver)

I've read diabetics can't do such jobs?

John.

P.S Docs told me I just got there in time too and I was in a dangerous state!

 

[totsy]

i started to feel very ill but nothing in particular, after a few days i had a unsatiable thirst and awfull headache, i popped along to lloyds 1st thing on the monday morning n blood was about 14mmol so they arranged 4 an appointment at drs, nurse rang and said im prob type 2 and to have gtt 10 days later, as the week progressed i was feeling deathly ill so had a friend get me a monitor and bloods were 28mmol, i rang g.p who told me to go to hospital, i was admitted with ketoacidosis and started on insulin,
this was 5yrs ago , ive been on basal bolus for a yr now and my last hba1c was 5.9, apart from acquiring new illnesses im doing good

 

[John506]

Hi totsy,

Thanks for your reply and I'm glad to hear you are doing well!!

 

[Romola]

Routine blood test - I had had high blood pressure for years.

No symptoms.

 

[Janieb]

I can actually remember being thirsty for about 3 years - I was always finishing my hubbies drinks off and he'd usually have to buy me two teas or oranges for one of his drinks.
Then last year I was sent with work to Bangalore India for two weeks on my own which was very very lonely. I ended up with severe gastricenteritous and suffered with it for a month after returning home. Again I felt really tired but put it down to that and my BP tablets as a possible side effect there was tiredness. Plus I was on water tablets as well to running to the loo all the time anyway. Then Pauls mum fell actually its a year ago tomorrow that she was taken into hospital only to die five days later on bonfire night. All through that time I was again very very tired but put it down to all of the stress and lack of sleep as we were travelling daily to Stoke from Rossendale.,

Its only June this year that I finally went to the doctors as I was for instance cleaning a room and having to sit down half way through because I was so shattered. I could sleep all day and still be exhausted and you could forget going out walking with the dogs or other wifely duties.

Luckily for me its type 2 diet only and since I've been diagnoised I've lost nearly 2 stone and my last test was below 7 so I'm not doing too badly. I've also not had any chocolate/biscuits/cakes/added sugar since June - so not bad hey.

 

[captainlynne]

Diagnosed in September after routine tests as new patient after moving house.

I'm always thirsty and running to the loo because of another medical condition, so missed those signs.

I'd had gestational diabetes back in 1972 but nobody told you then that it was likely to lead to T2.

Lynne

 

[Marzeater]

I had none of the usual symptoms and apart from needing to lose a couple of stone, I thought I was resonable well.
Then in June last year I was knocked off my motorbike - a long story and I feel so bitter about it that I'm having therapy. :evil: :evil:
Any way, the last test before being released from hospital was a urine test and I was told to make an immediate appointment to see my GP. The rest as they say is history. I was in denial for the first 12 months and I can't remember any results I was given, I think I blanked it out.

 

[nannybarbara]

I suppose you could say that I diagnosed myself!

I had gestational diabetes during both pregnancies. It went away the day each of the babies was born. Five years later I went to the doc with a nasty abcess, and I happened to mention to him that the last time I'd had an abcess was when I was pregnant. "Oh yes, he said, the abcess would feed on the excess sugar in the blood".

I thought about that on the way to the chemist with my prescription for antibiotic, and ... :idea: ... I bought a test kit while I was there. In those days, if anyone is that old and remembers that far back, it was urine in a test tube with a reagent tablet to see what colour it went. It went to 2% straightaway (maximum). I went back to the doc and told him, and got it confirmed later by GTT.

So here I am, 30 years later .......

Barb

 

[Dobbs]

I'd had the symptoms of thirst and needing to pee during the night three summers ago (no tiredness, though, particularly) but they were pretty mild and they went away - I thought it was just the hot weather. So I went on with things, feeling fairly OK, until, about a year after that, I had tinglings first in my lower legs then my feet. Because they were mild I ignored them for a while (you see a pattern emerging here?). After a few months it was clear they weren't going away so I went to the doctor and asked him what was wrong with my feet. He suggested I do a blood test, and when I called up to get the results he said "Oh, it's fine, except you know your blood sugar is very high?" It was 17.6. He said I should do the test again and if it was still high I would be sure to have diabetes.
I started Metformin and my blood sugar indeed came down quite a bit, but the neuropathy in my feet continued to get worse until I discovered this website and Jenny Ruhl's and started low-carbing. Since then there's been an incredible improvement and I feel quite OK most of the time apart from general, mild dizziness almost constantly which annoys the hell out of me.

 

[twhincup]

A massive blood clot in my left calf, which i didnt know was a clot so didnt seek medical help for 2 months :shock: Then the usual signs, constant thirst, getting up many times in the night to pee, 'smoky' vision, thrush and lethargic

Diabetes showed up in tests for the clots if i remember correctly, as a silver lining i get to meet my 'actual' doctor. Up until then i was always seen by a locum for the 4 years i've been with them.

 

[hanadr]

Had a stroke and would up in hospital
Hana

 

[TracyA]

I was always tired,but always put that down to going to bed at 1am and getting up at 6.30 Mon-Friday.
I didnt realise i had any symptoms until the doctor asked me.I have always drank loads of coffee,so that didnt occur to me either,but i was going to the loo alot more,and had lots of bouts of thrush and reoccuring ear infections.

 

[Janieb]

Yep I had re-occuring ear infections as well.

 

[PatrickSutton]

Like TracyA, I was constantly tired but put it down to hard work. The main thing though was the extreme thirst. I like a drink of orange squash; at that stage I could easily get through a 1 litre bottle of concentrate in one day at the weekend. I was also extremely overweight (19 stone).

I actually went to the doctor because I developed facial palsy, which was alarming because the right side of my face stopped working. That cleared up quite quickly with an antiviral and a steroid (prednisolone). I was sent for a blood test which showed that my fasting BG and cholesterol levels were extremely high. A couple of random BG tests after that (taken late in the afternoon, after work) gave results of over 18. After the second of these the doctor said "Type 2 diabetes, sorry"!

 

[Lili]

I had a migraine went to my gp surgery to ask if I should change my conraceptive pill, the nurse took my blood pressure it was sky high she knew my family history of diabetes and took a urine sample that was it I didn't have any of the usual symptoms!

 

[Jimbo1973]

For me, I started feeling a bit of fkilter about 3 years ago. Suffered from Balanitis every few months, doc just prescribed some cream which cleared it up and then came back again. Then last year I started feeling very tired quite a lot, was drinking lucozade and red bull by the gallon (always thirsty) getting up a dozen times a night to go to the toilet and was losing weight quite rapidly. After a very severe episode of Balanitis, I rang NHS Direct who asked me a load of, what I thought as stupid, questions then she suggested I was Diabetic. Emergency Dr rang me back at 11.25pm, asked me to come in ASAP and the rest is history. Was hospitalised that night and kept in for 6 days while they stabilised me.

Quit my main job in January, the stress was too much, decided to concentrate on something I had planned for a while to keep me busy.

Jimbo

 

[IanS]

I had no symptoms whatsoever.

I was visiting my GP regularly having suffered a slipped disc back in March. Since an Uncle had just been diagnosed diabetic and as most of my Mother's family (including my Mother) are diabetic, I just mentioned it to the doctor. He just drew lots of blood samples (he decided he might as well do the works). The first one was borderline on BG. The second one had some unspecified problem and following the third, a letter fell on the doormat from the diabetic nurse inviting me to make an appointment which was the first I knew that I was a diabetic.

The BG readings from the last two samples were only just over the limit, but they were over. This may go some way to explaining why I have managed to get the BG under control so quickly.

IanS

 

[goji]

Mine started with recurrent throat infections that never cleared up. I became exhausted and could barely pick myself up out of bed and I had strange shaky/sweaty attacks (which I now know to by hypoglycemia). It went on for about 4 months.

Finally, a GP picked up that a fasting test was borderline and did another which was also borderline. I was youngish and thin so I got an urgent referral to the hospital diabetes team who told me there was nothing wrong with me and that if I felt tired, I should develop some psychological strategies to deal with it!! :shock: :roll:

I went back to my GP who did a GTT and sure enough I failed miserably. I got started on insulin soon after. I was so happy to finally get a diagnosis and some treatment.