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Found by accident

K

kyle.Nixon

Newbie
Messages
3
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Hello, I've recently been diagnosed with T2 which was found by complete accident. I went to the doctors because I found a lump I wanted checking out. The clinician done a urine test and asked if I was diabetic. After a few blood tests it was confirmed, I'm diabetic. Obviously this was a huge surprise as other than the lump I'd found I felt fine. I'm now wondering just how many people are out there living without a diagnostic.
 
Welcome to the forum @kyle.Nixon . I suspect there are many undiagnosed type 2 diabetics out there. I too went to the GP for something else, just an annual check up which included blood tests. I had no symptoms of diabetes so my diagnosis came as a shock.
Stick around the forum, ask any questions you have and prepare yourself to be bombarded with support and info.
 
I went for test becuase my sister being diagnosed and a milestone birthday put me in the high risk category but I was symptomless so i thought I'd be negative! Yes, a shock but not as big as the one when I got access to my online records and found I was prediabetic in 2006! And nobody had told me.
 
Same here.

Went for chest pain...all good thankfully.

Almost at the end of my 10 minutes .."oh by the way".

May not of been exactly that, I was a bit too dazed afterwards to remember correctly .

Gave an agree

No emoji for what I really thought of not being told ...
 
Similar story! Milestone birthday.. general checkup with blood tests. Results back that afternoon. BAM GP sent me straight to emergency.

I felt fine. But was in DKA. Good luck that it was caught early on. Other symptons in hindsight match but then id put them down to other lifestyle changes and getting older.
 
Millions I'd suspect.

66 + million UK.
And many on here weren't aware, just like you at DX.

They call it a tsunami for good reason...

B
 
I was getting regular annual checkups, but wasn't told I was T2 until about 8 months after my glucose had risen to diabetic levels in early 2013. I had no obvious symptoms (apart from drinking lots of water, which I'd always done) so it was a complete surprise.
 
kyle.Nixon said:
Obviously this was a huge surprise as other than the lump I'd found I felt fine. I'm now wondering just how many people are out there living without a diagnostic.
Click to expand...
Just out of interest did they tell you what the "lump" is / was and neccesary treatments required if any.

They diagnosed me with bowel cancer after routine blood tests inc. hba1c. Further blood and stool samples comfimed the blood probems, which led to a colonoscopy and diagnose of colon cancer.

I was told years ago that I was borderline diabetic, and to cut back on sugars. No official diagnoses of T2 were given till a few years back.
 
kyle.Nixon said:
It's crazy, you'd think there would be screening for it to reduce the chances of going undetected.
Click to expand...
There is in the UK.

Problem with that is that the testing is linked to payments to GPs for diagnosing T2. This is intended to identify people at risk, but this sort of scheme does absolutely nothing to help those individuals avoid a diagnosis through early intervention.

It's fatalistic: the assumption seems to be that rising blood sugar cannot be stopped/lowered; that anyone with rising blood sugars will inevitably become diabetic; that anyone becoming T2 will need medication and eventually insulin; and that serious physical complications are unavoidable.

There's enough evidence on these forums to show that the assumption is false. This unfortunately doesn't stop most of the NHS using it.
 
I was in hospital for something else and was diagnosed diabetic then, but nobody actually told me. They injected insulin but didn't bother to tell me. I could (and did) work it out for myself, but it would have been helpful to have had that conversation.

As soon as I came out of hospital, I came off the insulin, found this wonderful forum, had a few months on metformin while I keto'd my way to better BG levels, then came off that but am still on keto and am happy to stay with that. Note I am not recommending coming off insulin without discussion like this, just saying what I did.
 
Yes, this fatalism was expressed by my GP when I was diagnosed. I had asked him how we could have such a huge T2D problem if all that was needed was for doctors to get patients to lose 15kg and adopt truly healthy low carb eating. He said it just didn’t work because people wouldn’t take those steps seriously and that this not a medical matter anyway but belonged to the counselling arena. It’s a do itself job, as we here all know.
 
I go for a scan on Wednesday so I'll find out then.
 
I went in with a nasty chest and came out with raised bp and diabetes. Diabetes probably contributed to the rest. That was 5 years ago, only discovered forum back in June approx and am now on low carb high fat, dropped a bit of weight and reduced hba1c from 71 to 49 in August, before that was on spiral to increased meds and they were considering insulin until diabetic practice nurse pointed me here. Good luck, it’s been really interesting to see what throws my blood sugars, even the times I have no idea!
 
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