Diagnosed with prediabetes in summer and have some questions.

[Impoftheyard]

I knew I was high risk for diabetes and pursued testing. A few years ago my optometrist took one look at my eyes and wouldn’t give me glasses till I had my blood glucose tested. I went to pharmacy as he advised and had a test. I hadn’t eaten for 13 hours but it was still not recorded as fasting and was 7. I was told that was normal. That was the second time I’d had a test that seemed a bit high. I was told it was normal. My doctor said it was normal.

Some grumbling symptoms - mostly incredible itching in my hands and feet made me wonder about it. I asked to be tested and told the doctor about this and peeing a lot - which I exaggerated a little to actually get a test. My brother is diabetic and so was my father. I got a test and the result of the hba1c was 43. I have been trying to lose weight since a chat with the diabetes nurse but stuck in a plateau. I bought a glucose monitor to try and encourage me to change my eating. I’ve learned a lot with a couple of weeks lurking here. My monitor showed I always seemed to start the day with quite a high fasting glucose - between 6.1 and 6.9 though it would go down as I got up and about. After meals with much carbs at all then my blood sugar can be between 9-10.4 Those are meals that are already quite restrained for me. I seem to have my highest peak about an hour after food.

I wanted to see what happens at night but here my journey of exploration gets a bit more complex. I invested in Dexcom 24hour monitoring. I can only afford a month of it but thought it would be good to give me a picture of what’s happening. It has been but not of usual circumstances since I had only been wearing it a few hours when I developed viral gastro enteritis and was very sick. I had a hypo of 2.6 at one point. Blood sugar yo-yoed a bit and then got more stable. I’m now back to eating normally but my blood sugar is not getting lower than 6.2 at any point and is around 7 when I get up.

My main question is, is this kind of pattern what happens after an event like a virus? How long does it take to settle again?

I had an appointment with the nurse but she was off sick and another nurse simply took blood to check my hba1c. I will go back and discuss results with her but I’ll not be seeing her for a few weeks.

Any thoughts are welcome and also thanks to all who post and discuss here. I have found it immensely useful.

Irene

 

[EllieM]

Hi @Impoftheyard and welcome to the forums.

First of all, the good news, that hba1c of 43 is quite a way from diabetic so there's a good chance you can reduce your levels without ever hitting official diabetes. And you've already bought a meter, so you can see what's happening to your sugar levels.

I'm going to give you my favourite link about T2 and low carb (assuming your prediabetes is a precursor of T2, if it's leading to T1 then there's not much you can do about it). Though this isn't the only way to treat T2, it's the most popular one on here.
JoKalsbeek's blog | Diabetes Forum • The Global Diabetes Community

As regards illness, it generally pushes sugar levels up, so your experience isn't totally surprising. The hypos sound a little strange, did you check the dexcom reading against a glucometer? It's normal for morning readings to be a little high, because your liver pumps out sugar in the morning (dawn phenomena).

As regards the continuing higher levels, I'm T1 so probably not the right person to comment, but it sounds like you were pretty sick so I'm not surprised that things are taking a while to settle. I hope you feel better soon.

Many of our posters are in the UK so asleep now, I expect you'll get more replies soon when they wake up.

Good luck.

 

[Impoftheyard]

Many thanks for your response. I wasn’t able to double check the hypos as I’d run out of strips and the order hadn’t arrived yet but I was shaking and couldn’t get warm during the first one. I sipped lucozade and it came back up. The second hypo was a sudden drop and didn’t get as low as the first. Both were when still feverish and after the more violet episodes of my bug.

I’m aware that my levels aren’t massively high but my optometrist is concerned about my eyes. He diagnosed me with cataracts (not sure if diabetic changes can cause those) but was more concerned about the number of floaters and my prescription changes. All is mild and low level but I want to get a handle on it when I do have a chance to change it.

I have my strips again and have used them for calibration readings with the dexcom and they seem to be pretty well in line. Thanks for the links. I have read through some of it before but I will go through more.

Irene