Do you remember the day you were diagnosed with Diabetes?

First though was like most ***…

Then had the hand out and told to reduce carbs. Went home confused and if im honest a little worried.

First thing I did (it was 2018) was google pre diabetes and up comes this forum. Several hours later I was confident and ready to learn how to kick ****.

4 months later,

me 1, 0 diabetes

I'm not naïve enough to think I have won the war but the battles are not one-sided.

I was in the acute conditions unit in a hospital at 2am so yes I remember it vividly

Oh yes indeed!
Just over three years ago I went to see the doctor (a young trainee) due to pains in my legs and she diagnosed peripheral arterial disease. During the course of conversation I mentioned that I'd lost a fair bit of weight over the previous 18 months or so and this seemed to set off a lightbulb moment and the lovely lass ordered a full blood test. A few days later I received a later confirming diabetes. Could have knocked me down with a feather as I didn't think that I had any of the 'classic symptoms', I wasn't overweight, in fact far from it, and ate a fairly healthy diet.
I'm grateful to this young doctor for her gumption in testing me for D and just as grateful to her for pointing me to this site, DCUK, to find out more information and support.
I ought to add that the information I've gained on DCUK has been far more valuable than any provided by local DSNs or by my new GP.

Dave

Mixed emotions : frightened or the unknown but grateful to find out why I had been feeling rubbish from the last month. This was my second doctor’s appointment in that time (and in the last 10 years). The first diagnosed UTI as the reason for my frequent peeing but the antibiotics she prescribed did nothing.

Type-2-Havent-A-Clue said:

Just curious to find out if you remember it and how you reacted to it?

For me I was absolutely petrified. Believing that I was going to have to inject every day! More than once in all probability! I had no idea about the difference In medications (oral/injection)

Click to expand...

I went to school the day I was diagnosed, it was a Tuesday lunch time and the teacher had to come and find me, the hospital always said the doctor handled it very badly and I should of gone by ambulance but surprisingly I still felt myself!

My son’s birthday. Got a phone call from the diabetic nurse with the result telling me I was officially now a diabetic and needed to come in for medications. She seemed far to cheerful about it for my liking.

Not a total shock as I knew something was making me feel shattered constantly but that was my only classic symptom. It was the latest in a terrible run of health issues over the last few years and I was a mix of resigned to yet another issue and in denial, blaming those other issues for stressing my body and squeewing the results. They probably were the straw that broke the camels back but I now know I’d been getting pre d and even D fasting glucose results for years without being told.

I immediately started googling ways to manage it and found this forum and other low carb recommendations. Oddly when I told the same nurse the following week I wanted to try lifestyle changes she also recommended low carb and this site in contrast to her initial advice on the phone.

Yes I remember 9th May 2017!
Came home from being told I was Type 2, found on a routine blood test for something else. I was in a shell shocked state. Hit Dr Google and found this forum, wrote my first post entitled “Shell Shocked” and the rest is history!

My GP told me over twenty years ago that I was borderline diabetic and to watch what I eat and drink. I cannot remember my reaction but it was probably a "what the" moment.

I became a full blown T2 five years ago this March coming, but I had more important things to worry about than T2, such as the AFib episode that stuck me in the base hospital for seven days.

8 Dec 2017. Remember it well. Went to Dr with heartburn, and IBS symptoms. Mad dash for the loo for about 3 months. Dry mouth. I was worried that it might be diabetes as so many in the family have it. I asked him to do finger prick during my appointment. It was 5.6 (or 5.8 can't quite remember) he said 'I would be very surprised if you were diabetic with that reading'. How wrong could he be. Bloods came back hba1c 62. Devastated. Cried when I got home on and off for a few days. Devastated. I saw what it could do with my mum who was eventually insulin dependent, lost her sight, had a stroke, sores on her legs that wouldn't heal..very poor BS control. I felt ashamed. Felt that my lifestyle had given me t2d. Couldn't even tell anyone I was for about 3 months. Just said I had high BS. Googled 'reverse diabetes' on the day of diagnosis after refusing metformin and the rest is history. Current hba1c 39 (Nov) lab 31 home test (Just this week). 4 stone lost in 7 months. Maintaining well. My diagnosis was a blessing in disguise. I've never felt better.

I had gone in for results of annual blood check, which was because I have hypothyroidism, and the gp just casually said 'Oh and you have diabetes'. I was petrified though in away I had been expecting to probably become diabetic at some point, as my mother was T2 and I had been putting on weight since retirement. But I didn't expect it so soon, and had thought I could lose weight again.
I'm terrified of injections after bad childhood experiences, and have only had one injection since the children's immunisation ones.
But it did shock me enough to make me go on a crash diet, eating just one small meal a day, in the evening.
I lost 23 lbs in the next 12 weeks, and found this forum. At my 3 month retest I had lowered my HbA1c result from 49 to 44.
My weight and HbA1c figures have crept up since then, as I got a bit complacent. But they are still lower than my figures at diagnosis and the 3 years prior to that.

August 2015. I wasn't unwell at all. Over a period of about 6 months prior I had to keep getting the prescription for my glasses changed. Didn't think much of it at the time. Being long sighted, my vision was actually improving. Thought that was great.

I also had my wife inform me that I seem to pee a lot. I told her that I drink a lot of water. After working in the heat up in Central QLD it gets drummed into you to drink and keep drinking. They even had charts on the wall telling you how much to drink based on the colour of your piddle. Naturally, I assumed that peeing was a result of lots of water intake. In hindsight, it was probably the other way around. I was drinking because I was peeing.

Next, I was overweight at 106kg and a BMI of 31. I put in a big effort to lose weight. I was weighing my daily kJ intake but was losing weight faster than I'd calculated by about 3 times. Reaction was, gee this is a good diet.

Thinking it over I made an appointment with my GP just to check it out. Three things by themselves didn't ring any alarms. All together I thought was a bit suspicious even though I felt well. Didn't know what to expect.

I explained everything to the GP. Eyes keep changing, peeing a lot and shedding weight faster than I should be. He just grabbed my finger, stabbed it and measured by blood sugar on the spot. He nearly fell off his chair. It was 22.5 and he told me to fast and he'd get a full blood test done. Fasting came back at 15.5 and HbA1c 9.7

Packed off to see the diabetic nurse and dietician at the local hospital who were very nice but I think we know how much help they really are. That's for another day. Here I am at this place with great info and support. All good now. Dropped to 88kg, A1c usually in the 5's and getting by on a max of 20 to 30g of carbs per meal.

Thanks guys, you've been wonderful
Glenn

awoken at 2am to phone calls to both my mobile and land line by the emergency doctor telling me to get to the nearest all night emergency centre and no it couldnt wait till the morning. Drove to said center in a state of panic with the mrs hyperventilating to be told oh its probably just a junior doctor panicking looking at your results, you can go home now but see your own doctor tomorrow

Type-2-Havent-A-Clue said:

Just curious to find out if you remember it and how you reacted to it?

For me I was absolutely petrified. Believing that I was going to have to inject every day! More than once in all probability! I had no idea about the difference In medications (oral/injection)

Click to expand...

Little over2 years ago I'd been wreched for 6+ months, which I initially blamed on my wonky thyroid... But I kept losing control of my legs (I faceplanted regularly, muscle-weakness), couldn't lift a fork, and found I'd lost weight. That in combination with the pain in my liver-area got me to go to the doc's, who ran some tests and said I had fatty liver disease. I googled possible causes, and worked down the list. No alcohol abuse, no overmedicating, and no diabetes, surely...? But to be on the safe side I took out our cat's meter (He's been a T3c since he had pancreatitis a few years back), and tested myself. Kinda off the cuff, didn't think it'd be bad.

It was.
And I knew what it meant because of Night's T3c...
So I e-mailed my doc and made a curve the next day; testing every hour, on the hour. It was horrible. The fingerpricks I could handle, but the numbers I was seeing scared the **** out of me. They were quite high, and I knew how bad that was. (I didn't realise I should be in hospital and on insulin, but at least the reality of T2 sunk in FAST!)
Needless to say I did a lot of crying those days. Kept doing a lot of that in the months to follow, because they thought it wasn't just fatty liver, but liver cancer as well. (It wasn't, thankfully). So I thought that was going to be it. End of story, goodbye, casket's in the mail. I responded badly to Metformin, did okay on gliclazide, but after the whole metformin fiasco I read up on anything I could regarding T2 management through diet. Because everyone was on holiday when I was diagnosed, it was months before I saw anyone, and good thing too... By that time I'd implemented low carb eating, had my bloodsugars first in the prediabetic range and then the normal range, and the dieticians and specialist I saw told me to eat carbs, eat, eat, eat them! They figured I was obsessed with food (I was, but not ij the way they thought I was), and suspected anorexia. But nope. I love my food too much to be anorexic.

Really, I went straight into the stages of grief. I woke up every morning crying my eyes out, as reality hit me all over again on waking. (Diabetes doesn't mean much to people unless they know others who had it, and their worst complications.... A torn heart, a ruptured aorta, amputated legs... I thought that was my immediate future, once the cancer-scare was dealt with). I wanted control of this, I wanted to have a say.... With low carb, I did. And the more I understood about food, the less scary T2 became. Took a while longer for the depression to get back under control, but it got there eventually. Now the T2 is the only issue I can easily handle, it's my other health problems that still get to me sometimes and keep me from doing the things I want to do... But the diabetes doesn't get in the way at all. Considering I felt my world was ending just when I'd actually found some joy in my life... I'm doing pretty good.

I had suspected I was diabetic for months but put off doing anything about it, after my brother said I was going to the toilet often, due to drinking too much coffee. When I eventually saw my GP he tested a urine sample and referred me to the diabetic clinic, but he told me not to go home and tell my mother I had diabetes, as it could easily be something else. I thought, if it wasn't diabetes, it was probably something a lot more serious.

A month later I saw the consultant at the hospital. He said, "I know you'll have been hoping that it's all a big mistake, but I'm afraid you are diabetic." He then asked how I felt about that. I couldn't speak and just pointed to the tears that were just about to fall down my cheeks.

Even though I'd suspected it for quite some time, the diagnosis floored me. I had to wait to be admitted to a ward and felt embarrassed at being unable to stop the tears and having to wait in a public area. I kept on telling myself to pull myself together and stop crying, but just couldn't stop.

5 years old, 1971. Just remembered that I was having new PJ's for hospital

After a week of peeing day and night, feeling beyond tired, plus drinking lots of green cordial my mother took me to the GP.
He listened, examined, smelt my breath and tested my urine. Diagnosed within 10 minutes. I was 1966 and I was 13 years living in Sydney with my parents and two younger brothers.
The GP said we were to go home, he would ring a specialist and arrange what to do next, but that I would be going to hospital before the day was over.
The GP said afterwards that it had been my mother's description of her usual energetic and mischievous son being so tired that he sent him down the path of looking for diabetes.
My specialist said I was fortunate to have such a good GP.

Don't remember the exact date but over 30 years ago went to see my lovely GP, described symptoms and he took bloods. I worked in an area which meant I had a small amount of medical knowledge, so when I went back to see him and he said, really kindly and very concerned, that he was so sorry to tell me that I had diabetes, I simply told him I'd expected him to say that. He was greatly relieved, but unfortunately wasn't sure which type so said we'd try Metformin for a week or two. I left the surgery and went to the library to get some books on diabetes. My biggest concern, when T1 finally diagnosed, was dealing with my new partner (we'd only moved in together a month earlier), who was needle-phobic. In the 30 years that followed he never once saw me inject but was a great support in managing T1.