Diabetic or not

[Jul211]

Hi For the past 40 plus years I have had non diabetic hypoglycaemic attacks, sometimes up to 6 a day no matter what I eat. In 2021 I was under a lot of stress, I had cancer, found my younger brother dead, had to take on caring for my elderly mother while undergoing treatment and my asthma was so bad I had to double up my inhaler. I was living on chocolate bars, chips and pizza most of the time. A few months later I had a Hba1c blood test. Then I started getting letters about retinal screening when I asked why they said I had been referred by my GP. Next thing I get a text from the surgery saying I had type 2 diabetes because the result had come back at 49 and the cut off is 48. The thing is my inhaler actually can cause elevated glucose readings in blood tests and my next Hba1c tests came back below the diabetic range and I have no symptoms at all. I am now listed as a diet controlled diabetic even though I eat chocolate, cake and biscuits nearly all the time otherwise I will have hypo attacks. I monitor my glucose every day and 99% of the time the readings come back within the healthy non-diabetic range (4 to lower 7 fasting and postprandial) despite my diet. Even if it comes back at say 8 within 10 minutes it will have dropped to 6 or below. No-one at the surgery listens to my concerns they just nod and tell me to continue with my diet. As far as they are concerned I am diabetic based on one minor elevated result. I obviously do not meet the criteria for referral to the diabetic clinic at the hospital to talk to a specialist so what can I do? As it stands I feel as if I am taking up important appointments for people with diabetes ie HCA and retinal screening. My brother believes it is because surgeries receive extra funding for diabetic patients. So I am hoping someone here tell me if they think I am diabetic or not?

 

[JoKalsbeek]

Hi For the past 40 plus years I have had non diabetic hypoglycaemic attacks, sometimes up to 6 a day no matter what I eat. In 2021 I was under a lot of stress, I had cancer, found my younger brother dead, had to take on caring for my elderly mother while undergoing treatment and my asthma was so bad I had to double up my inhaler. I was living on chocolate bars, chips and pizza most of the time. A few months later I had a Hba1c blood test. Then I started getting letters about retinal screening when I asked why they said I had been referred by my GP. Next thing I get a text from the surgery saying I had type 2 diabetes because the result had come back at 49 and the cut off is 48. The thing is my inhaler actually can cause elevated glucose readings in blood tests and my next Hba1c tests came back below the diabetic range and I have no symptoms at all. I am now listed as a diet controlled diabetic even though I eat chocolate, cake and biscuits nearly all the time otherwise I will have hypo attacks. I monitor my glucose every day and 99% of the time the readings come back within the healthy non-diabetic range (4 to lower 7 fasting and postprandial) despite my diet. Even if it comes back at say 8 within 10 minutes it will have dropped to 6 or below. No-one at the surgery listens to my concerns they just nod and tell me to continue with my diet. As far as they are concerned I am diabetic based on one minor elevated result. I obviously do not meet the criteria for referral to the diabetic clinic at the hospital to talk to a specialist so what can I do? As it stands I feel as if I am taking up important appointments for people with diabetes ie HCA and retinal screening. My brother believes it is because surgeries receive extra funding for diabetic patients. So I am hoping someone here tell me if they think I am diabetic or not?

Your hypoglycemic episodes were never properly treated nor diagnosed?

We can't diagnose on here, but there's conditions that can cause hypo's, like Reactive Hypoglycemia. Something worth checking, potentially. It is when you eat carbs, and your blood glucose has a little spike, and your pancreas severely overreacts, pumping too much insulin in your system, resulting in a hypo. You treat that hypo with more carbs, triggering another insulin overreaction and another hypo, so you keep swinging up and down all day, which must be exhausting and at times, quite scary. With six hypo's a day, it kind of sounds like something you might be familiar with, but there's all sorts of metabolic conditions and very few, (RH is rare), that endo's and GP's have heard of. A lot of docs also suggest just treating the hypo's and eating 6 times or more per day, when the average patient would want to avoid going hypo entirely... Which for RH would mean going for a low carb diet, as a lot of T2's here follow as well: no glucose spike, no resulting hypo.

Type 2 usually develops when someone has a lot of insulin floating around, so we become somewhat insensitive to it. Someone can start out with RH and develop T2 eventually because of all those insulin floods, and there is such a thing as steroid-induced diabetes as well. (The steroids don't make the test result high, the glucose in your blood does... Steroids trigger a glucose dump from the liver, so it is actual glucose in there, and it can be damaging to your organs; it's not a test crying wolf).

Are you a T2 diabetic? Technically speaking, most practices will need two HbA1c's in the diabetic range to make the diagnosis official. So whether or not you are...? That's something for you to figure out with your doc, and maybe an Endo. But as you're working on that, maybe ask after RH and similar conditions too... Mind you, the treatment could well be the same for both (low carb eating, amongst other things), but, you know.... Don't accept that this is just the way your life has to look. You're unwell, with whatever's going on with your blood glucose and insulin levels, so... They have to figure it out.

Good luck!
Jo

PS: I'm tagging in @Lamont D because far as I'm aware, no-one here knows more about hypoglycemic episodes, so who knows, input could be very, very useful.

 

[Lamont D]

Your hypoglycemic episodes were never properly treated nor diagnosed?

We can't diagnose on here, but there's conditions that can cause hypo's, like Reactive Hypoglycemia. Something worth checking, potentially. It is when you eat carbs, and your blood glucose has a little spike, and your pancreas severely overreacts, pumping too much insulin in your system, resulting in a hypo. You treat that hypo with more carbs, triggering another insulin overreaction and another hypo, so you keep swinging up and down all day, which must be exhausting and at times, quite scary. With six hypo's a day, it kind of sounds like something you might be familiar with, but there's all sorts of metabolic conditions and very few, (RH is rare), that endo's and GP's have heard of. A lot of docs also suggest just treating the hypo's and eating 6 times or more per day, when the average patient would want to avoid going hypo entirely... Which for RH would mean going for a low carb diet, as a lot of T2's here follow as well: no glucose spike, no resulting hypo.

Type 2 usually develops when someone has a lot of insulin floating around, so we become somewhat insensitive to it. Someone can start out with RH and develop T2 eventually because of all those insulin floods, and there is such a thing as steroid-induced diabetes as well. (The steroids don't make the test result high, the glucose in your blood does... Steroids trigger a glucose dump from the liver, so it is actual glucose in there, and it can be damaging to your organs; it's not a test crying wolf).

Are you a T2 diabetic? Technically speaking, most practices will need two HbA1c's in the diabetic range to make the diagnosis official. So whether or not you are...? That's something for you to figure out with your doc, and maybe an Endo. But as you're working on that, maybe ask after RH and similar conditions too... Mind you, the treatment could well be the same for both (low carb eating, amongst other things), but, you know.... Don't accept that this is just the way your life has to look. You're unwell, with whatever's going on with your blood glucose and insulin levels, so... They have to figure it out.

Good luck!
Jo

PS: I'm tagging in @Lamont D because far as I'm aware, no-one here knows more about hypoglycemic episodes, so who knows, input could be very, very useful.

Thanks @JoKalsbeek , I must add, you have totally grasped the prognosis of postprandial hypoglycaemia.

 

[Lamont D]

Hi For the past 40 plus years I have had non diabetic hypoglycaemic attacks, sometimes up to 6 a day no matter what I eat. In 2021 I was under a lot of stress, I had cancer, found my younger brother dead, had to take on caring for my elderly mother while undergoing treatment and my asthma was so bad I had to double up my inhaler. I was living on chocolate bars, chips and pizza most of the time. A few months later I had a Hba1c blood test. Then I started getting letters about retinal screening when I asked why they said I had been referred by my GP. Next thing I get a text from the surgery saying I had type 2 diabetes because the result had come back at 49 and the cut off is 48. The thing is my inhaler actually can cause elevated glucose readings in blood tests and my next Hba1c tests came back below the diabetic range and I have no symptoms at all. I am now listed as a diet controlled diabetic even though I eat chocolate, cake and biscuits nearly all the time otherwise I will have hypo attacks. I monitor my glucose every day and 99% of the time the readings come back within the healthy non-diabetic range (4 to lower 7 fasting and postprandial) despite my diet. Even if it comes back at say 8 within 10 minutes it will have dropped to 6 or below. No-one at the surgery listens to my concerns they just nod and tell me to continue with my diet. As far as they are concerned I am diabetic based on one minor elevated result. I obviously do not meet the criteria for referral to the diabetic clinic at the hospital to talk to a specialist so what can I do? As it stands I feel as if I am taking up important appointments for people with diabetes ie HCA and retinal screening. My brother believes it is because surgeries receive extra funding for diabetic patients. So I am hoping someone here tell me if they think I am diabetic or not?

I'm not going to add much than @JoKalsbeek has said.
Hi @Jul211 , welcome to our forum.

This does remind me so much of how I was treated by my surgery, many GP's, dsn's and one specialist. They didn't understand the condition, the concept of postprandial hypoglycaemia (Reactive Hypoglycaemia) or didn't believe that someone could be non diabetic and have hypos.
I am just glad, one GP, had the wherewithal to recognise the symptoms I was displaying and checked my BG levels. Very low. She couldn't explain it. However I got a referral to a specialist endocrinologist, and got the tests because I had another hypo in front of him. And the diagnosis was Non diabetic Late Reactive Hypoglycaemia.
It is in the medical books, but it seems not taught to doctors unless they specialise. It is rare but becoming less as it becomes more prevent because of the diet we all have ate since young.
We cannot process sugars, carbs as we once did and the pancreas over produces too much insulin every time we eat them. It is called a food intolerance. I have had lactose intolerance since young and the other intolerances developed later into my late forties , fifties.
I was told not to have dairy. But told to have carbs when (mis) diagnosed with T2.

My recommendation is to review the RH forum and threads to try and understand if it does seem relevant.
And if you keep getting hypos, you need a specialist, who specialises in hypoglycaemic conditions.
Keep a food diary, show your GP the results, insist on a referral. Keep battling.
But as Kal suggested, a very low carb diet, no processed foods, only fresh food, be wary of starchy vegetables, and careful of some oils and additives.

Take care.
Best wishes.

 

[Melgar]

Hi For the past 40 plus years I have had non diabetic hypoglycaemic attacks, sometimes up to 6 a day no matter what I eat. In 2021 I was under a lot of stress, I had cancer, found my younger brother dead, had to take on caring for my elderly mother while undergoing treatment and my asthma was so bad I had to double up my inhaler. I was living on chocolate bars, chips and pizza most of the time. A few months later I had a Hba1c blood test. Then I started getting letters about retinal screening when I asked why they said I had been referred by my GP. Next thing I get a text from the surgery saying I had type 2 diabetes because the result had come back at 49 and the cut off is 48. The thing is my inhaler actually can cause elevated glucose readings in blood tests and my next Hba1c tests came back below the diabetic range and I have no symptoms at all. I am now listed as a diet controlled diabetic even though I eat chocolate, cake and biscuits nearly all the time otherwise I will have hypo attacks. I monitor my glucose every day and 99% of the time the readings come back within the healthy non-diabetic range (4 to lower 7 fasting and postprandial) despite my diet. Even if it comes back at say 8 within 10 minutes it will have dropped to 6 or below. No-one at the surgery listens to my concerns they just nod and tell me to continue with my diet. As far as they are concerned I am diabetic based on one minor elevated result. I obviously do not meet the criteria for referral to the diabetic clinic at the hospital to talk to a specialist so what can I do? As it stands I feel as if I am taking up important appointments for people with diabetes ie HCA and retinal screening. My brother believes it is because surgeries receive extra funding for diabetic patients. So I am hoping someone here tell me if they think I am diabetic or not?

I cannot add anymore than @JoKalsbeek and @Lamont D have already said.
I can however, comment on the frustration around a diagnosis that gets stuck on your medical record. I got diagnosed with asthma when I lived in the UK. I had one event and I have never had another one since, but it's on my record. Very frustrating.