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@david4503
I know there has been an increase in type 1's, but I don't agree it's a huge surge of just adults lately getting it or that people get sick enough to eventually get diagnosed right. Type 1’s were and still are rampantly misdiagnosed as type 2’s. I was for over 8 years. It does not necessarily become apparent at any time you are a type 1 because when misdiagnosed as I was, they just think the drugs aren’t working well enough and they put you on insulin. And since that is what you needed as a type 1, it never becomes apparent you are actually a type 1. I never got sick, the drugs weren’t working well and gave me side effects. They ended up putting me on insulin because the drugs weren't working to control my BG levels satisfactorily and I also refused to take them anymore. In my case I had even asked my pcp and my endo if I could be a type 1 as I had an uncle that was a type 1 and was told no, that I was a type 2 and they still never tested me. Being a type 2 never made sense to me. It didn’t run in my family, type 1 did, I swam 75 gym pool laps a day, I ate very healthy as a vegan, but I was overweight, not obese, but overweight and I believe that’s what helped them “assume” I was a type 2. I don’t know if I ever would have been diagnosed right if I hadn’t switched my pcp doctor who sent me to a new endo, who then tested me immediately without me even asking, as at that point I had given up asking. I was positive for the antibodies and I was making 0 insulin. I was surviving and not sick because I had been put on insulin. It turns out that’s a pretty common story.
That is how rampant misdiagnosis is. Because really, I ate healthy, I was highly active and type 1 ran in my family, and I asked if I could be a type 1. And yet I was misdiagnosed for over 8 years until I switched doctors. So yea, a lot of people died, got really sick or maybe survived with insulin still misdiagnosed as a type 2’. And the endo that misdiagnosed me was considered really good. The endo that tested me and diagnosed me right, she was an adult onset type 1 herself and luckily was more likely to spot it.
Just last month a late 20’s person here went to emergency feeling sick with high blood sugars, an active person that asked if he could be a type 1 and was told no, that he was too old, he was a type 2 and sent home. The next day they called him and told him he was a type 1 and to get back there. Luckily they had ran the tests.
So the myth still exists even in the medical field. I just ran into an orthopedic doctor that when I said I was a type 1, he assumed I had gotten it as a kid. I had a chiro just 5 years ago say to try an herb that could work to cure my diabetes , I reminded her I was a type 1 and it wouldn’t work on me. And her reply was but you didn’t get it as a kid you can get rid of it. She had been a neonatal nurse for years before becoming a chiro.
So yes, I can believe tens of thousands died from being misdiagnosed in the past. Right now 64,000 people are diagnosed with type 1 every year in the US alone and 50% of those diagnosed are over the age of 30. There is a lack of research to ever know how many were misdiagnosed in the years past for obvious reasons. But there is no reason to doubt that a lot were and that a high percentage of adults went misdiagnosed since they now know how prevalent it is in adults and that can be carried to infer that there were a lot of misdiagnosed adult type 1's in the past too.
But no doubt about it, type 1of all ages in increasing.
- Approximately 1.84 million Americans have type 1 diabetes. (A few years ago it was 1.25 million).
- By 2050, 5 million people are expected to be diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
- An estimated 64,000 people are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes each year.
- 200,000 people under the age of 20 years old have type 1 diabetes.
- Between 2011 and 2012, 17,900 children and adolescents under the age of 20 were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
- There was a 21% increase in people diagnosed with type 1 diabetes between 2001 and 2009 under the age of 20.
- By 2050, 600,000 people under the age of 20 are expected to have type 1 diabetes.
It’s still too common now, and it was obviously more common not that many years ago. And supposedly the medical field is supposed to be more aware of it now and yet there is still a huge lack of information even in the medical field. Somewhere between 30-75% of type 1's are misdiagnosed as type 2's first. Depending what study you read. Generally it is accepted that it is around 35-40% currently. And that is only the known ones. If I had stayed with the same doctors, would I ever have been diagnosed right?
Which is why when I hear a type 2 say they are struggling and not getting the results they think they should, I always say, when things don’t make sense you could be a type 1 instead, to keep it in mind.