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Do I have diabetes?

I

isthisdiabetes

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I have no history of diabetes although my BMI has been in the overweight region for the last 10 years and I've been living a sedentary lifestyle.

Very recently, 1 week ago I started feeling extreme hunger, thirst, sweating, tingling in my feet and body, blurred vision.

I tested myself using a Freestyle lite and realized that my fasting levels were between 4.2mmol/L (76mg/dl) and 4.6mmol/L (83mg/dl), testing several days which was at first a relief.

However, today, after a fasting test of 4.2mmol/L (76mg/dl), I decided to test myself after breakfast (a bowl of Jordan's granola with milk, a ripe banana and an orange) and realized that after 2 hours after the meal that my levels were around 12.4mmol/L (222 mg/dl). and it took 3.5 hours to decrease to 8mmol/L (143 mg/dl), and at 4.5hour mark I it was down to 5.3mmol/L (95.4mg/dL)

In all these tests I have used Freestyle Lite 2019/09 expiry date test strips and made sure to test several times to average the results, and the results were consistent between samples,

I am puzzled by these results. It seems from the symptoms and from the huge levels after 2-3hours after a meal that I have diabetes type 2, but can't understand why I have fasting levels that are in the normal range.

If this is diabetes why do I have such normal fasting levels?

If this is prediabetes, why do such normal fasting levels occur and why do I have such insane spikes in blood sugar readings after meals, up to the 12.4mmol/L (222 mg/dl) ranges ?

What am I interpreting wrong?
Any informed opinion would be greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards
 
Dr Bernstein http://www.diabetes-book.com
says somewhere that the fasting levels are the last to go to pot. The important question is not whether you fall into this or that category, but whether your bg is rising to harmful levels. IMO 12.4 is a harmful level, so you might want to reduce your intake of carbs a bit and test again before and 2 hours after the meal. If you want to see "normal" post prandial bg levels, you will need to find the level of carb content you can tolerate in your meals. No-one can tell you this, you will have to experiment to find it out for yourself. Good luck!
 
Go and see your GP.

You should get an HbA1c test which will estimate your long term average blood glucose level.

This should then indicate if you are prediabetic, diabetic, or not.

Your blood glucose spikes suggest that you don't have a normal insulin response so you should arrange for diagnostic tests. We can't diagnose you via this forum.
 
but it does indicate you have some insulin resistance, so you need to lose the podge and get active. sounds simple and it is. get off processed and junk food and cut back on the carbs and with luck it will get back to normal.but we dont need to tell you this. A trip to your doctors in the new year is required
 
I agree with @LittleGreyCat in that we cannot diagnose you because we are not doctors. Go visit your GP andshow him all your reading and tell him of your symptoms. He will likely arrange tests that will include a HbA1c blood test. If that test shows indications of being within the Diabetic range then a repeat HbA1c will be done to confirm. If you wish to change your diet in the meantime that is fine as the HbA1c is an average calculation of the three months prior to the test being analysed.
 
I feel like I am repeating a well know record but hope it is helpful. Prediabetes is made up of two seperate parts. Impaired fasting glucose and imparied glucose tolerence. They are like the chicken and egg of type 2 development.

The good news is that you don't have a fasting problem. Many don't start that way. As to the rest. You need a doctor and blood tests carried out in a lab.

I would recommend that you ask your doctor for the blood tests, HBA1C and a glucose tolerence test.
 
Hi. Morning fasting tests are not reliable so discount those but your symptoms plus the high'ish 2 hour after meal reading could well indicate diabetes. See the GP to get the right tests done. Meanwhile keep the carbs down a bit and bananas are not good for blood sugar so I would avoid them; also granola is loaded with sugar so also best avoided. Have no-added sugar muesli instead with blueberries or similar?
 
Hi aand welcome,

Have a look at the www.bloodsugar101.com you may find it interesting.
It is a great source of info for type 2, and there is a section on the various ways that blood glucose control can deteriorate as we move towards full blown diabetes.

It doesn’t always develop at typical speeds or in the ways most docs think.

Hope that helps.
 
Even if you are not diabetic - only a doctor can arrange for the tests - the amounts of carb you are eating are rather high for someone in your situation.
I needed to eat low carb for control of my weight and to feel well all my adult life, as the recommended or normal levels of consumption were impossible for me to eat and maintain my weight.
 
Contralto, thank you for your comments.

I have been eating very frequently actually, snacking peanuts and cashews and apples and bananas 4-5 times a day, and eating mostly wraps with philadelphia cheese, although I've been making carrot, bean and butternut squash soups over the last month, but the last weeks had a surge in appetite to which probably also contributed a lot of freelance work stress. I have went almost for 25 days extremely sleep deprived sleeping only 3 hours a night on average, to finish some tasks, last month, and during that time was also snacking all the time, alongside some occasional soups, and salads, and skipping a lot of meals by wraps with philadelphia cheese and orange or apple juice alone.

I feel this feeling that my liver is poisoned and it reflects on how my tongue perceives taste. I'm not exactly thirsty or feel the need for water but feel definitely dehydrated.

I only had 1 meal each day the last 3 days (breakfast) and took the following readings on the chart below (each segment connecting 2 measures):

Dec 24th: The red line - (2 whole wheat tortilla slices + 150g of philadelphia creamy chease + 1 red apple)
Dec 25th: The purple line - (100g of jordan's granola + 1.5 cups of milk + 1 ripe pear and 1 ripe banana + 10-20g of peanuts)
Dec 26th: The green line (1 serving of "garden-of-life" plant based powder protein cup shake only with water in + 1 raw cucumber) - ongoing readings

Considering how these charts show the impact to the food I took and the amount of meals I had over the last 3 months, I estimate that the Hb-A1c is probably between 6.5 to 6.9, considering what I was eating all this time, as I ate mostly the foods on the red line and purple line, probably 3-4 times a day.

I was also bed-ridden between 2013 and 2016, 3 years, due to a severe reaction to Zoloft antidepressant, and was only able to start moving this year, but tested myself like this 4 months ago and was borderline high normal response.

The difference now is that am having all sorts of strange symptoms developed in a matter of 1 week, sweating, weakness, dehydration, fatigue, dry mouth, increased appetite (well, only until I saw these test values), loss of sexual capacity. Not much blurred vision so far, but the rest of the symptoms are quite debilitating. I wish this was hypochondriac fears but the data seems to be quite obvious.

Your experienced opinions are welcome.
 

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Ummmmm..........when do you intend to see a Doctor?

Experienced opinions from a web forum from people with no medical qualifications are worth at least as much as you pay for them, but possibly less.

Your Doctor would not diagnose under these circumstances, just having you post some stuff on the Internet.
Why do you expect us to?

Is there some reason why you are unwilling to see your Doctor?
Or have you already consulted your Doctor on this?
 
Hi, if we follow the given diabetes diagnosis guideline it may look like you have diabetes but the problem is it may or may not be because only a doctor with a complete blood work can diagnosis you. Go see a doctor just to be safe.
 
I am currently staying at a foreign country as a visitor, where I don't have access to medical care. I expect to see a doctor in 3 months when I am back to my country, or cancel my trip and go back sooner because of this.

I assume that if patients are empowered to know their BS levels and keep an eye on them, and if communities like this are created to foster exchange of experiences, that patterns can be discussed by laymen, assuming that they backup their opinions or cite valid references. Something like "the same happened to me". I understand the need for the "Miranda warnings" though, but nobody is risking their non existent medical license, so please feel free to give your biased and uninformed opinions, based on your experience or external references

My reaction to soup today at lunch, attached. containing carrot, potato and sweet potato.

Read that boiled potatoes have low GI index. It's likely that I am diabetic but it's being masked by the low carb responses on this meal, what do you think?
 

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By the time of the last reading on red on attached chart above (as I write this) I am feeling a ravenous hunger. and dry mouth.

Considering that today I didn't have dangerous spikes, what should someone in my situation if he had been diagnosed diabetic, but wasn't medicated so far, do to curb the symptoms of sweating, dry mouth, hunger? provided that after 2-3hours the BS levels adjusted to reasonable pre-meal levels around 100mg/dL?

How do diabetics approach these symptoms? Does taking medication solve this completely or do they need to keep adjusting every single day to spikes in hunger and thirst, eating, drinking or taking more medication?

It seems from there readings that if I pick the right foods I can avoid the spikes into the >200mg/dL range, and have the BS level come back to the 100mg/dL level after 3-4 hours. Is this considered a highly dangerous situation from your experience, considering I am having sudden extreme hunger, dry mouth and weakness problems for about a week now?

OK, please don't tell me again you're not medical professionals and only a medical professional can say what they think. This forum has to serve for people to share their opinions and experiences. This is not a suicide hotline so you can give your honest opinion and still sign with the miranda warning stating that you didn't went to medical school. I believe nobody will judge you for that and all readers, including me, will take it with a grain of salt

No pun intended, but is salt intake good for diabetics?
 
We cannot diagnose or give you medical opinions. Go to see a doctor.
 

@isthisdiabetes - You say you are in a foreign country. Which country are you actually in?

If you have these issues, I suggest you seek medical support where you are.
 
This sounds quite normal. If you are going to eat granola, a banana and an orange and test yourself at the peak metabolism point after such a huge sugar consumption, I would expect anyone's blood glucose to be high. The fact that it has come down a few hours later suggests that your pancreas knows how to deal with that.
I hasten to add, I'm am not a medical expert.
 
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