Feels like my life is over at 24

[cfcluke27]

Sorry if this is the wrong place, and for the long wall of text, but I'm sitting on a lot that I just need to get out.

As part of looking into some other health worries (strong history of health anxiety), I had a blood test last week. My Hba1c has unfortunately come up at 55mmol/mol, up from 17 in February 2025 (38mmol/mol). I feel distraught. I've had a very bad year of neglecting myself, bad foods, minimal exercise, and really mentally not been in a good place, and this just makes it feel so much worse. I have an appointment Monday titled 'Diabetes register', so with that and the result, it's probably 99.9% confirmed.

I just feel hopeless. I feel that because of a bad year mentally, my life has been cut extremely short, and that I will be lucky to see 30, and it's eating away at me inside. I've been doing my best with eating healthier since the result, with two days where I fell off the wagon a little by having a bag of crisps and some chocolate. Other than that most days has been 2 slices of brown bread, and some chicken / eggs.

I tried some Libre sensors to start figuring out how I react to foods, but the first one fell off instantly, and the second one lasted a day before it 'shut off for safety reasons'. Throughout that day, I spent 68% of the day in the low blood sugar range, and 32% in normal range, meaning no spikes, which is good, but probably a result of lack of food.

I'm embarrassed to tell people, my family and friends because of the stigma around it. At the same time, I'm missing out on things already for fear of carbs and overconsumption - having a beer for the football, going out, etc etc. I just feel like all these great moments that I could be having are now out of my reach, and I won't experience that younger lifestyle again.

I'm determined to fight as hard as I can, but I am so scared, and I don't really know what to do. I had days of denial, hoping for a misdiagnosis, but it seems Hba1c is pretty reliable, so I'm not sure. I also know my dad has the disease, so I have the family factor..

I'm sorry for such a long post, and I'm not sure what I'm hoping to get out of it, I just want to be able to share this with somebody, as I feel like I'm quietly drowning at the moment, maybe hear from people with similar experiences, or hear some advice. Thank you.

 

[niblue]

An hb1ac of 55 isn't drastically bad (mine was 106 when I was diagnosed!) although I think would still be regarded as being a diabetes diagnosis rather than pre-diabetes. It is in the range that I'd expect it to be reasonably manageable via diet and other lifestyle changes though, especially as you mentioned that your eating and exercising habits hadn't been the best leading up to it.

I'd suggest going to your appointment and listening to what they recommend etc., then perhaps reporting back here on what the suggested plan is. In all likelyhood it won't have to have a drastic impact on your life - I still have the occasional beer (although rarely more than 1 before switching to something with less carbs like red wine) and I still go out and eat (sometimes giving myself a day off from low-carb, but sometimes just eating what I want as one-off).

As for the stigma I'm not really sure there is one! Certainly not that I've noticed anyway.

 

[KennyA]

Hi and welcome.

They might run a second test just to confirm diagnosis - ie to check that the first test wasn't wrong, they can be - but in the UK these days an HbA1c of over 48 is usually the main and often only method of diagnosis.

The main thing I wish someone had told me earlier is that much of what you think you know about T2 diabetes is wrong. If you take steps to control it, it's not progressive, it can be managed, and life can be fairly ordinary and boring as usual. It might be worth getting hold of a copy of this book

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/th...s-and-prediabetes-2022-dr-david-cavan.209576/

which is a pretty good guide to the harmful myths around T2.

At the point of diagnosis in 2019 my HbA1c was 50. It had been climbing for years, but no-one ever told me. Once told, I was able to get back to normal (36mmol/mol) BG levels in four months. I cut carbs to about 20g a day maximum. Many days I had none. In practice that meant no potato, cereals, bread, pasta, rice, and nothing sugary. Essentially all the bland stuff that we're accustomed to using to bulk up meals. I eat meat, fish, green veg, cheese, cream and dairy, pulses and beans, that sort of thing. This meant (almost?) no processed or "convenience" factory foods - it wasn't a deliberate choice but it worked out that way.

It worked for me. In the years that followed I also lost a fair amount of weight, and I'm probably feeling better than I had for around 20 years - I'm much more active and playing football again. These days I tend to see 20g/day as the default, but I can frequently double that intake and it doesn't seem to affect much. Things have been pretty stable for three or four years. I'll have a beer or two fairly often, or whisky, or a nice chianti. There's some decent low-carb beers around these days.

There's very little else that I have needed to change long-term. In some ways it was easier for me because I had some pretty bad diabetic symptoms starting when my BG was in the low 40s. That ensures that you really don't want things to slip. Don't be concerned about "spikes" - people on Reddit in particular seem to be obsessed with them but a rise in BG after eating even a tiny amount of carbs is perfectly natural and normal, as is liver-driven BG variation for a host of reasons.

best of luck. This forum is a great resource, and questions are both free and encouraged.