HELLO: AM I PRE DIABETIC?

chrismikayla said:

Hello everyone;

Within the past few years I have had some classic symptoms of diabetes and hypoglycemia. I have struggled with night sweats, excessive thirst, frequent urination, weight gain, and extreme carb sensitivity. I have struggled with waking up every morning with hypoglycemia symptoms including shakiness, blurry vision, and confusion. I get nauseated with a headache when I go too long without eating. My most recent fasting blood glucose tests were 95 and 99. My A1C was 5.3 a few months ago. I feel much better when I eat low glycemic/low or no sugar carbs such as lactose free milk, sweet potatoes, and some vegetables. If I eat a lot of the wrong carbs I have the above symptoms plus tingling extremities. Do you think I'm in the early stages of diabetes? I also have low free t3 thyroid hormone.

Click to expand...

Hi,

Welcome to the forum..

Diabetes as it stands untreated don't cause "hypos."
& only your doctor can diagnose. We can't on this forum.

However. I can tag in some RH experienced that will enlighten & clarify what maybe happening... @Lamont D @Brunneria

A reading of 5.3 (or 35mmol) is technically normal however the HbA1c is an average of the previous 8-12 weeks so will not show the highs and lows of that time period. Do you use a glucometer at home? Have you taken readings when you feel a hypoglycaemic event? I would advise that you get a glucometer and start recording the readings in advance of seeing a doctor who may then order more tests for you.

chrismikayla said:

Thanks. I haven't tried a glucometer yet.

Click to expand...

You really should., one wouldn't drive a car in a speed restricted area without a functioning speedo gauge..
How would you explain to that "officer" that catches you..

chrismikayla said:

Hello everyone;

Within the past few years I have had some classic symptoms of diabetes and hypoglycemia. I have struggled with night sweats, excessive thirst, frequent urination, weight gain, and extreme carb sensitivity. I have struggled with waking up every morning with hypoglycemia symptoms including shakiness, blurry vision, and confusion. I get nauseated with a headache when I go too long without eating. My most recent fasting blood glucose tests were 95 and 99. My A1C was 5.3 a few months ago. I feel much better when I eat low glycemic/low or no sugar carbs such as lactose free milk, sweet potatoes, and some vegetables. If I eat a lot of the wrong carbs I have the above symptoms plus tingling extremities. Do you think I'm in the early stages of diabetes? I also have low free t3 thyroid hormone.

Click to expand...

You know, after having watched the videos that I'll post below, if I were in your situation, I wouldn't wait till I get a diagnosis of diabetes to alter my diet if I thought my health issues were related to what I was eating. I think having any symptoms like you mention would make me assume that something was out of whack (as you already seem to have instinct about), and it could well be something to do with insulin resistance.

Hey chrismikala, what you're describing sounds like hypoglycemia to me. In the US, it's diagnosed with a 5-hour Glucose Tolerance Test (GTT). Learn more here... https://hypoglycemia.org/

My experience was similar to yours when I was diagnosed in my 20's.

To begin understanding what's happening with your glucose levels, you can go to Walmart and buy for about $25 a ReliOn Prime glucose monitor kit, $9, a lancing device (to poke the sides of your finger tips), $?, and 50 test strips, $9 or $10 - (25 strips, $5, and 100 strips, $17.88 are also available). Well worth the expense...



You can check your fasting glucose, your pre-meal glucose, and your post-meal glucose hourly to see what happens over a 1, 2, or even 5 hour period. Not sure, but I usually began having the awful symptoms 3 to 5 hours after eating when I went through this more than 30 years ago.

Brunneria is very knowledgeable will better be able to answer your other questions. Hopefully, the above information will get you started.

ckayla said:

Thanks Winnie. Were you able to prevent full blown diabetes?

Click to expand...

Reactive Hypoglycaemia is not the same as Type 2 Diabetes that is why it is so important to see a doctor and have tests to diagnose. We are not doctors, we cannot diagnose you.

Sadly, no. When I crossed over to T2DM in 2005, I didn't know about the low carb diet. In 2015, I got re-diagnosed with an A1c of 9.9%. I was so upset. I started searching everywhere online for help. That's when I found out about the diet. Within 3 days I was on the diet. By day 5 I found my way here. Best diabetes forum in the world.

Hadn't checked my A1c for 2 years. Recently got a lot of lab work done. A1c over the last two months has been 6.3%, 5.9%, and now 5.8%. Hoping to get it down further with the low carb diet and walking this spring. I don't take medication or inject insulin.

The only way you can tell now that I have diabetes is by my fasting and post meal glucose levels. Right now my fasting glucose levels are 115 to 140 mg/dl. Post-meal glucose is peaking between 160 and 180 mg/dl. Had I started the diet 10 years earlier, I believe I could have put my diabetes in remission and kept it there.

You likely will be able to do much better than I have.

Oops, gotta pull my laundry out of the dryer...

Hi and welcome @chrismikayla

You have had some great answers below.

All I can really do is suggest that you discuss your symptoms with a doc and get properly checked out.
There are a few cross over symptoms, especially if you have a dodgy thyroid. Hormones can wreak havoc! Your doc will hopefully investigate those.

If it does turn out to be blood glucose dysfunction, a meter would help you tremendously, because it will tell you whether your symptoms are due to hypos (where your blood glucose is hypo level low) or due to rapid drops in bg that feel like hypos but aren’t that low. These may feel very real and unpleasant, but are known as ‘false hypos’.

Please let us know how you get on?

If you can't get to see your doc soon (Easter hols) you could enquire at your local pharmacy. Apparently they can do blood glucose check for you. If you do it first thing in the morning when you feel ill, you can see what's happening with your glucose. As said above, could be your thyroid or something else too. Don't ignore, but try not to worry too much either, if you can.

Let us know what you learn.

That's great chrismikayla!

Now I'm going to make some additional suggestions as to what I'd do if I could go back in a time machine and gather more data when I first began having hypoglycemic symptoms. Again, they're just suggestions...

Now if you can briefly begin to jot down 1) what you ate along with 2) the timing of those glucose levels into a notebook, you'll be able to begin collecting data to see how your levels trend over time based on what you eat. I'd suggest eating the way you normally do so you can see what your levels are prior to making dietary changes. That way you'll have a baseline of information to compare to following making dietary changes.

I use abbreviations: "F" - fasting, "p-B" - pre-Breakfast, "1 hr B" - 1 hour post-Breakfast, "2 hr B" - 2 hour post-Breakfast; same with "L" - lunch; "D" - dinner; or "S" - snack, if any; then "Bed" - Bedtime.

It looks like you have the beginnings of rising glucose levels (but please note any diabetic here, myself included, would be quite pleased to have your numbers; Richard Bernstein, M.D., a type 1 diabetic and author who teaches the low carb diet, believes 86 mg/dl is a normal glucose level based on his testing of pharmaceutical representatives who visited his office over the years. ).

The other thing I'm curious about is what's causing your non-life threatening, but very uncomfortable hypoglycemic episodes. Hopefully, you'll be able to get some glucose levels when that happens too.

I'm interested in continuing to follow you as you continue to track what's happening.

chrismikayla, I was trying to pick which of three lectures to share today with my diabetes group so re-watched this one from KetoFest 2018, "Ivor Cummins: An Engineering Guide to Chronic Disease Avoidance". It's most instructive...


The good news is that you're catching your elevated insulin levels early, so you likely will be able to avoid all the chronic diseases caused by insulin resistance.

I pick up something new with each viewing.

Action steps gleaned from lecture and filled in with additional internet searches...

don't eat processed foods that contain processed starches, sugars, and omega-6 seed oils - (canola, corn, cottonseed, peanut, saffola, soybean sunflower)

optimize omega 3 to omega 6 ratio; eat omega-3 rich foods or supplement; stop using omega-6 seed oils which may lead to "cellular susceptibility to sun damage"

get sun exposure but avoid sunburn; take vitamin D; eat foods rich in nitric oxide - (leafy greens, beets, cilantro, basil, rubarb, etc.); use exercise to increase nitric oxide levels

supplement with magnesium to insure optimal levels - (I believe he said in another lectures that 78% of us have a magnesium deficiency; magnesium is required for almost 300 processes in the body)

manage stress

don't smoke

address causes of inflammation such as heavy metals, get adequate levels of vitamin C from food or supplements daily

Monitor your health markers; monitor calcification progression with Coronary Arterial Calcium (CAC) and slow progression of calcification

eat a keto [or low carb diet]; use fasting