Anyway, back to testing. The fasting blood glucose results (tomorrow, I really hope) will either be:
1. High enough for a diagnosis for diabetes. In that case, do I ask for further testing, and if so, what sort? How do they determine the type of diabetes? I have fibromyalgia, which is autoimmune.
2. Borderline, in which case what do we do next?
3. Not high enough for diabetes. In that case I really want them to retest, considering that very high reading three years ago, and that I have so many symptoms. What do I ask for in that case?
Are any of the tests unreliable, or unreliable in certain situations? I think I read about one of them not working well if you're anaemic, for instance? Not sure if I still am anaemic, I've been on iron for a few months now and they were going to test that too, plus the NHS reference ranges for anaemia are much lower than other countries'.
I'm still not near the other computer, but I do have a keyboard hooked up to the tablet at least now, so here are the symptoms I can remember. Most of them go back many years.
* Going to the toilet umpteen times a day. We counted once, and it was 26. I'm having increasing problems with dark and/or odd-smelling urine these days, even though I now drink a lot of water on cardiologist's orders. (The 26 times in one day thing was before I started drinking 3l a day, though, I was probably drinking 1.5l tops back then.) Apparently they should really have been testing me for diabetes before the urologist did all those unpleasant tests and procedures. I'm pretty tired today because I was going to the loo so often last night, though at least it wasn't as bad as ten times in a night, as it's been in the past.
* Increased thirst - not sure, I've been on drinking 3l/day for the last two years and the ME memory loss means I can't remember what it was like before that.
* Dry mouth, cracked skin around my mouth, teeth and gums not in a good state.
* Blurry vision for hours after waking up - that's more recent, perhaps a year? It's getting worse. I've had dry eyes for years.
* Extreme tiredness - I've had that since I developed ME in 1997, there's no way of telling it apart from other causes of extreme fatigue.
* Itchy skin, various fungal infections, slow wound healing. This includes gynae issues that were another occasion when I should have been tested for diabetes, I'm learning.
* Response to sugar - I've had to be careful about this for years. My response varies depending on what else and when I've eaten that day, and how I'm feeling generally, but it can make me feel really awful, including lightheadedness and headaches. I will sometimes get a head rush as soon as I bite into something sweet, especially with citrus fruit. I made sticky toffee pudding for my partner's flat-warming in October, and the amount of sugar I ended up consuming caused certain symptoms to flare up enough that I realised that I really, really have to be careful with sugar. So I've been much more careful with it since, just having one or two pieces of fruit a week and occasional tiny (e.g. 3g) pieces of very dark chocolate.
* I have to be really strict about mealtimes, I absolutely cannot skip meals, and I've been carrying emergency food with me for years. It's usually things like sesame snap bars.
* I've had episodes where I collapsed very unpleasantly, was unable or barely able to move or talk, very dizzy, shaking/jerking, blackouts, heart rate and blood pressure all over the place, nausea, itchy skin. We thought it was something to do with the dysautonomia, probably as a result of the mast cell disorder, but there aren't any specialists in those where I live so no one really has a clue. My support worker, the one who has diabetes and recognised my morning blurry vision as a possible symptom, says a lot of this is what happens when she gets hypos.
* Cold extremities - I can't remember, was that another symptom? My body temperature fluctuates a lot but tends to run cold, and my hands and feet get icy despite all the extra thick socks and fingerless gloves. If I'm out and getting exhausted, my partner knows when it's time to get me home because my lips turn blue.
* Weight - I've been slim most of my life (probably BMI 20-22), but put on quite a bit of weight in my late twenties (going up to about BMI 30) for a few years. I dieted surprisingly easily about five years ago, peacefully losing a pound a week until I got back to my usual weight. (At which point my GP decided I was underweight based purely on looking at me when she was used to me being fat, put it on my notes, and I would find that whatever I went in with after that, it got in the way. "No, it's TOTALLY NORMAL for your lips to go blue, it must be because you're underweight," from another GP, did stop when she actually put me on the scales and realised I was closer to overweight. I never did get any investigation into why I get so cold that my lips sometimes turn blue.) Over the last few years, I've put on some of the weight again, I'm now about BMI 25, largely due to falling in love with a good cook who has different eating habits to mine! I've started semi-dieting a few weeks ago, I'm eating smaller breakfasts and lunches but not yet calorie counting, though it looks like I will be needing to do that as well as be careful with carbs. I had a nice hourglass figure as a youngster, but I've tended to put on weight around the middle more as I've got older, and when I lost weight it disproportionately went from my hips. I do eat sensibly, nice wholefoods diet, I've just been eating a bit too much lately.
Exercise - I've got moderate/severe ME, I'm bedbound 20-24 hours a day, and as ME is made worse by exertion, I cannot increase how much I am doing beyond what is safe with the ME. It's been a bad winter, but last year I was managing to get out for little walks with my partner and the cat several times a week, so that's about the best I manage, plus doing stretches at home and the odd wheelchair trip.
