What lead to your diagnosis?

sweetlady

Newbie
Messages
4
I noticed about 3 years ago, getting up in the night going to wee I had put on alot of weight
and felt tired I was sitting in the surgery for my asthma check then I noticed a sign on the
wall which made me mention it to my nurse, I was put on metformin and diet which at the
time I found quite easy, but now I am struggling with weight still. :(
How often do you see yuor diabetic nurse :?:
 

PlymouthDave

Active Member
Messages
38
The main symptom for me was my eyesight. It deteriorated very quickly and it was the Optican that finally persuaded me to go to my GP and I was admitted with DKA that night.
Looking back, I had all the other symptoms too:
Weight loss - a stone in a month
Being a member of the UK nocturnal urinating team!
Being tired probably due to lack of sleep (see above).
Extreme thirst.
When I was admitted, my blood sugars were in the mid twenties with lots of pluses of protein evident. It came as quite a shock as I was 47 at the time and had just retired from the Royal Navy in good health.
 

anne 37

Active Member
Messages
40
i worked 3 jobs and on the go all the time ,do care work so not much time to rest . when l stopped 2 of the jobs to concentrate on my full-time job . thats when l noticed l was drinking loads of fizzy juice . one night after a late shift l felt really light headed and my eyesight went blurry . when l got home l thot because we had been so busy l needed to eat something .my brother is type one and l thot my sugar was low and decided to test it on his meter , what a shock l got when it read 29.8 . Didnt want to believe it and even went to work next day ,went to gp after work and it was still high. next day l had to hand in sample at gps and ketones were right of the scale , gp tried to get me admitted to hospital but no beds available , luckily for me diabetic clinic seen me that day , they thot l was type 2 and put me on metformin , 6 weeks later phone call from gp to say l was type 1 and should be on insulin . got put on insulin and have to inject 5 times a day , but not too bad its not really high amounts , l still work full time caring for disabled adults and its hectic at times and l need to rest for a wee while as l cant work as intense as l used to cause l get tired , ive lost over 6 stone and blood levels and cholesterol are all nearly spot on . glad l checked blood level that night and found out before l passed out .
 
Messages
2
Hi to all.
This is my first ever post so hope it will be of some use.
Sept 2006.
After two weeks on holiday in sweltering heat, drinking at least 4 litres of water a day.
Thinking nothing was wrong i went back to work. still drinking a lot,graze on stomach from surf board
not healing. I realised whilst driving that i could not read the road signs ahead.
Went for eye test next day, advised to visit a&e where my sugar level was 28.6 after 1 hour 36.2 and told to visit GP in two days. Back at a&e three days later with ketones . put on metformin for two years but ended up on insulin a year ago and never felt better. Now all under control with HBa1C of 6.5 in August .
Grumpy old man
 

sugarless sue

Master
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Hi Gom welcome to the forum. I hope you can find some interesting information here to help you. I notice that you have type 1 in your profile but you say you were on Metformin ,which is a drug for type 2 diabetes. Are you actually a type 2 on insulin?
 
Messages
2
Hi Sue
I was first diagnosed as type two but then told by my diabetic nurse that i was a late onset type one
after having symptoms for about 7 years without realising or knowing. She said it was most probably kept at bay by my energetic way of life when i was younger. It only started to show when i started to drive for a living and the lack of exercise.
Grumpy old man ( Les )
 

roo.be

Active Member
Messages
41
Type of diabetes
Type 1
I've joined in this discussion not because my diagnosis story is unique or unusual but more because of the comments above re metformin as a treatment in Type 1. I have been Diabetic for 37 years and in the last couple have been taking metformin twice daily along with injections, and now a pump. I thought it was somehow connected to insulin resistance? i wasn't aware that it is really recognised as a type 2 treatment.

My diagnosis came about very quickly but whilst on holiday in Dawlish in Devon. I do not remember the symptoms I experienced but to this day I have very distinct recollection of the cottage hospital where I was diagnosed. My mum says I became very tired and lethargic and needed to wee a lot. A typical story I think. I was only 3 and fortunately the time between symptoms and diagnosis was less than 1 week. Me and dad had a favourite beach walk which we did every night until the night where I complained of aching legs and a couple of nights on the ache was so bad I cried all night. A doctors visit the day after soon had the answer.

I have progressed from a single injection a day of a premixed insulin through to mixing my own long and short acting and on to two injections a day and eventually on to four. After working out very quickly the relationship between the timing of the jabs and the food etc I was able to increase the number of injections to better suit my food habits. A year ago I received the pump.

I've gone from steel syringes (does anybody else remember Sydney Syringe and the role Rupert the Bear played in all this) to disposables, pens and now pumps. I've seen some funky gadgets over the years too. Palmer Injection Gun anyone?

I love reading everybody else's stories about their diagnosis and experiences.
 

roo.be

Active Member
Messages
41
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Oh and very quickly I think the book "sugar mouse" referred to earlier in this thread is in fact the one by John Branfield. It's a good read, aimed at teenagers and has some very insightful commentary at the end regarding societies perception of Diabetics, although it was written in the 70s and I think it may not be relevant nowadays.
 

sugarfree2

Member
Messages
21
never got ill wasnt tired just kept needing to pee a lot and drinking loads i knew this was a sign of diabetes so went to docs got tested told to go to hospital got tested again told iam type 1 and put on insulin had a few days off work then went back but was told by doc if i left it a little longer i would have got ill so looks like i got off lightly compared to some
 

osbornet

Member
Messages
11
Like most, if not everyone here, it was constant thirst and peeing for England that made me get tested a few weeks ago.

Its funny though how it can creep up on you, i was getting ridiculously tired, not at work really but when i was on my days off. Got to the stage where i would be slumped on the settee watching tv and thinking to myself that i must go to the Mercadona to get some shopping, i'd have next to nothing in the fridge to eat, but i hadnt got the energy to get out of the seat and go! Didn't really register as aproblem at first because, for whatever the reason, i've always been tired and lethargic on days off/holidays going back donkeys years!

Thing is, without wanting to sound like a real saddo, i dont have anything in my life really apart from the job that i really enjoy so I used to joke about it, said it was my system going into hibernation as i had nothing to do or even think about!

I was drinking 5 or 6 pints of orange squash at work each day plus maybe a couple of litres of water when i got home. I would be up 3 or 4 times a night to pee which probably didnt help the tiredness.

Just got to a moment one day when i suddenly realised i had been very thirsty for about 3 weeks and that the tiredness/lethargy was getting worse by the week. Both my parents are diabetic (both type 2) so i knew that the thirst and excessive peeing were symptoms.

I made an appointment to see a doctor a few days after and a blood test confirmed it. Was 15.4 when diagnosed and with a change of diet and taking 2 Metformin, when i checked earlier today it was down to 6.7. Still a little high but i'm getting there!
 

Debloubed

Well-Known Member
Messages
828
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
Dislikes
When people say 'Pacific' instead of 'Specific' :-)
roo.be said:
Oh and very quickly I think the book "sugar mouse" referred to earlier in this thread is in fact the one by John Branfield. It's a good read, aimed at teenagers and has some very insightful commentary at the end regarding societies perception of Diabetics, although it was written in the 70s and I think it may not be relevant nowadays.

that's the book! not relevent now, agreed, but a good story none the less, wish I could get my hands on a copy :p
 

marleemacd

Member
Messages
14
I didn't have any symptoms at all. But suddenly I found it hard to get up a staircase at work. The more I did it on a particularly busy day Friday afternoon, the more breathless I felt. On the Monday I had a routine prescription appointment with my GP and I mentioned it, thinking he'd tell me to come back another time if it continued. My dad thought it might be asthma as he'd developed that at my age (40). My GP told me my heartrate was too fast, and he arranged for me to go down to the local hospital for a heart reading. An hour tops, he said. It was seven days before I was allowed home. While checking me over they found that I had Type 1 diabetes, even though I had no symptoms and no family history of any kind. And it had nothing to do with the breathlessness. That's what they said at the time, but more recently my consultant said I had DKA when I was admitted. Again, no symptoms...I was put on an insulin drip and woken up every hour for a blood glucose test. Because of the drip I couldn't move and my right calf started to hurt so much it made me cry. In the morning my leg had swollen up to about double the size of the other one, not wee to begin with. So the breathlessness turned out to be a pulmonary embolism from a DVT in my calf. It was all quite a shock. But so was then being told I was a type 2 after they'd been so definite about being type 1. After about three weeks on insulin I had my first hypo, and started to have about 4 a day until they took me off it, did an anti-GADs test and pronounced me a type 2 after all. I had no idea there was even any doubt.
This was all March this year, since then I've lost 60lbs on 500mg metformin twice a day, loads of exercise and cutting out the foods that weren't working for me - sadly the things I loved, like pasta and fruit. My last HbA1c was 5.9, from 9.5 at first. So, although it's been a struggle it did make me change my lifestyle, and I did need to do that. And from reading other people's experiences, I realise I'm very lucky that I was diagnosed quickly and didn't get really sick. It could have all been so much worse.
 

roo.be

Active Member
Messages
41
Type of diabetes
Type 1
sweetlady said:
How often do you see yuor diabetic nurse :?:

I only visit clinic once a year and the nurse is always part of this visit but she is available for me to contact by phone or email whenever. she will organise a visit outside of my annual clinic time if we need to speak or I have problems. I also go to a bi-monthly social gathering of like minded diabetics, also on the pump, and the nurse and dietician come to these. This organised by the diabetics not the hospital but the diabetic team want to support this kind of support so come along willingly.
 

hails

Well-Known Member
Messages
98
I had the same. I was draining pretty much the whole water cooler at work, weeing lots and then when I feel asleep in a loud busy pub while talking to a friend I took myself off to Lloyds and was sent to the doctors. I had remember a girl at school saying diabetes had something to do with drinking and weeing a lot and am quite lucky it stuck in my head as I managed to self diagnose!
 

Daibell

Master
Messages
12,642
Type of diabetes
LADA
Treatment type
Insulin
I'd been suffering thirst, had to pee several times a night and had lost 1/2 stone in weight from 10 stone quite suddenly. I knew this as I have attended a gym several times a week for many years and usually measure my weight. I've never been overweight, had a sensible diet and there is no diabetes in the family. My wife decided to try to feed me more to put the weight back on which, although well intended, caused me to have blurred vision and finally to become very irritable. So, I had all the signs which my GP 'confirmed' with a urine stick and declared me Type 2. He waited 3 months whilst I tried a 'better diet' despite me having constant sugar in my urine using my own urine sticks. My HBA1c after 3 months confirmed the need for tablets so I started Metformin SR. Gliclazide was then added and recently increased. It's probably also worth saying that shortly before the main symptoms I had male candida which another GP treated with cream and missed the fact that it is one of the most common symptoms of diabetes. So, am I Type 2? No, I don't think so. I'm nearer to Type 1.5 which is why the Gliclazide helped more than the Metformin. I feel I must comment on Cugila's posting which quotes 'once a Type 2 always a Type 2'. I know this is DUK's mantra but it all depends on how you define Type 1 & Type 2 and whether the GP got it right without using any real tests as in my case. I've yet to find a consistent definition of the two types that stands up to examination. There are several postings in this thread from people who have had their diagnosis changed from one type to another proving the point that using the two rigid classifications is not helpful. So, despite my NHS booklet recommending carbs with every meal I'm failing to achieve good HBA1c levels so I'm low carbing which makes scientific sense and helps delay the inevitable move to insulin.
 

Philip60

Member
Messages
9
At age 46, within 6 months I lost over a stone in weight, (from 10 stone something down to 9) BMI down to about 18. I felt cold much of the time, my skin was dry, finger tips and inside of nose often cracking. Oh, and I got very thirsty, especially just before bedtime. Everybody said I looked too thin...
Am now type 1 (LADA) on insulin. BMI up to 22 and other problems sorted. :)

btw, my GP, who thought I was type 2 and had me on 4 Metformins, had never heard of LADA, and didn't know what I was talking about when I mentioned it. I had to persuade him to send me to a consultant for proper diagnosis! :roll:
 

marmalade

Member
Messages
6
I had gestational diabetes diet control in 1996 with my first pregnancy. After giving birth i was found to be glucose impaired tolerance. I was tested every 6 months for two years and eventually was diagnosed with diabetes type 2 in feb 1998. I was normal weight. I did however have an enlarged retina which led to my last IGT test being sooner than six months. I was diet controlled diabetic for 5 years before being put on medication which changed from tablets this year to insulin .
 

stuart c

Newbie
Messages
2
finding out

Hi all
I was wondering how you found out how you have diabetes?
I have a thyroid problem and I thought it was acting up, so
my gp sent me for a blood test.thyroid was fine but my
suger level was 7.7, I really had know idea what that meant,
have not seen the diabetic nurse yet although the gp said it
was important to get checked over asap.
How does daibetes effect you?
I feel a bit adrift at the moment,
regards
Stuart
 

cugila

Master
Messages
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People who are touchy.......feign indignation at the slightest thing. Hypocrites, bullies and cowards.
Re: finding out

There is a pre-existing thread about this subject somewhere. If we find it we will merge it.
 

PatrickSutton

Member
Messages
18
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Dislikes
Burnt cheese, crispy bacon, avocados
Re: finding out

The previous thread you are thinking of was probably "What lead to your diagnosis?" in Diabetes Discussions last October.