Hi!
I was diagnosed about 15 months ago with Type 2 but I reckon the story about how I came to be diagnosed is a little unusual and pretty embarassing!! At least, I've not come across any fellow diabetics with quite the same story as mine so if you read this and your own story is similar to mine I'd be interested to hear from you!
Anyway, on to my story...
It all began one afternoon while I was in the toilets at work. I retracted my foreskin, as I usually do when I pee but for some reason I actually looked at my penis as I did it (something I rarely did). I noticed a greyish-white lesion on the head of my penis, at first I thought I'd be able to wash it off but alas, I couldn't. I resolved not to panic and see how it was in a week or so.
Well, a week went by and the lesion was still there so I decided to do the responsible thing and make an appointment to see my doctor. I had to wait two weeks before he could see me but eventually the day arrived and I remember sitting in the waiting room feeling incredibly nervous. Anyway, he called me in and I told him what my problem was and that I was certain that it wasn't an STI and unsurprisingly he asked me to show him. So I stood by the examination table and took down my trousers and pulled down my pants to allow him to inspect my penis. I had expected him to say something along the lines of "Ah, it's just a case of (insert benign genital condition here), I'll just write you a prescription and that should clear it up". Anyway, what he did say was that because I was sure that it wasn't sexually transmitted, he wasn't sure what actually was causing it so he booked me an appointment to see a urologist.
Another couple of weeks later I found myself in the waiting room of the outpatients department of my local hospital. A nurse first took me to one side and told me that since I was a new urology patient she had to weigh me, measure my height and blood pressure and told me to produce a urine sample. After popping to the loo to produce the sample (and my, are those sample tubes they give you hard to pee into or what?!?) I found myself sitting back in the waiting area once more.
Eventually, I was called into the urologist's room and somewhat to my initial shock and horror, the urologist was a woman! Anyway, the very first thing she asked me was if I was diabetic. I replied by saying that as far as I knew, I wasn't. She told me that there was a high concentration of sugar in my urine and asked me if I knew of any family history of diabetes. I replied that apart from a 3rd cousin who had type 1 diabetes I had no other relatives with any form of diabetes as far as I knew.
Anyway, she asked me to lie back on the examination table and once again I took down my trousers and my pants and she proceeded to examine my penis.
To cut a long story short, she told me that the lesion looked like it may be casued by Balanitis Xerotica Obliterans (BXO), and that it was a non-sexually transmitted inflammation of the penis and that it is a condition that diabetic men are particularly susceptible to. She said that the best course of action was to have a blood test and in the meantime apply some Canesten cream to it in order to try and clear it up. Fortunately, the BXO did eventually clear up (thank God, because if it persisted she told me that I may have to consider getting myself circumcised, which of course sent all manner of alarm bells ringing in my head!), but the blood test did indeed show that I had a high blood sugar level so a few weeks later I had a second, fasting blood test which confirmed a diagnosis of Type 2 Diabetes.
Initially, I was shattered - I felt like my life was over. My mind was flooded with nightmarish visions of me in a diabetic coma or in hospital having to have one of my feet amputated. It was the last thing I expected to be diagnosed with!
Pretty soon I was given an appointment with the diabetes nurse at my local GP surgery and she really helped to put my mind at rest. I was prescribed Metformin and she informed me that I would need to make some changes to my diet, the obvious one of which was to cut out sugar and use artificial sweetener instead. I don't know what I would have done without her!
I decided rather than to live in denial about my condition I would embrace it! I immediately went on a diet and over the course of six months I lost 4 stones in weight and took more exercise in the form of swimming and cycling and I recently took up tennis. I even took part in Diabetes UK's 'Swim 22' challenge during which I swam (in stages) 22 miles (the equivalent of swimming the English Channel) and raised £1,000 in the process.
Now, 15 months on, my blood sugar is under control and my nurse is happy with my progress. And thanks to losing weight I now feel better than I have in years. Sure, I still have the odd 'bad day' when I feel depressed about not being able to enjoy the things I used to enjoy, but I console myself that things could be an awful lot worse. Fortunately those days are increasingly few and far between.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read my embarrassing story, I haven't had the courage to be able to share my story with friends and family yet (as far as they know, all I had was a 'rash', I didn't tell them where the 'rash' was however!) but it's been good to get it off my chest!
I was diagnosed about 15 months ago with Type 2 but I reckon the story about how I came to be diagnosed is a little unusual and pretty embarassing!! At least, I've not come across any fellow diabetics with quite the same story as mine so if you read this and your own story is similar to mine I'd be interested to hear from you!
Anyway, on to my story...
It all began one afternoon while I was in the toilets at work. I retracted my foreskin, as I usually do when I pee but for some reason I actually looked at my penis as I did it (something I rarely did). I noticed a greyish-white lesion on the head of my penis, at first I thought I'd be able to wash it off but alas, I couldn't. I resolved not to panic and see how it was in a week or so.
Well, a week went by and the lesion was still there so I decided to do the responsible thing and make an appointment to see my doctor. I had to wait two weeks before he could see me but eventually the day arrived and I remember sitting in the waiting room feeling incredibly nervous. Anyway, he called me in and I told him what my problem was and that I was certain that it wasn't an STI and unsurprisingly he asked me to show him. So I stood by the examination table and took down my trousers and pulled down my pants to allow him to inspect my penis. I had expected him to say something along the lines of "Ah, it's just a case of (insert benign genital condition here), I'll just write you a prescription and that should clear it up". Anyway, what he did say was that because I was sure that it wasn't sexually transmitted, he wasn't sure what actually was causing it so he booked me an appointment to see a urologist.
Another couple of weeks later I found myself in the waiting room of the outpatients department of my local hospital. A nurse first took me to one side and told me that since I was a new urology patient she had to weigh me, measure my height and blood pressure and told me to produce a urine sample. After popping to the loo to produce the sample (and my, are those sample tubes they give you hard to pee into or what?!?) I found myself sitting back in the waiting area once more.
Eventually, I was called into the urologist's room and somewhat to my initial shock and horror, the urologist was a woman! Anyway, the very first thing she asked me was if I was diabetic. I replied by saying that as far as I knew, I wasn't. She told me that there was a high concentration of sugar in my urine and asked me if I knew of any family history of diabetes. I replied that apart from a 3rd cousin who had type 1 diabetes I had no other relatives with any form of diabetes as far as I knew.
Anyway, she asked me to lie back on the examination table and once again I took down my trousers and my pants and she proceeded to examine my penis.
To cut a long story short, she told me that the lesion looked like it may be casued by Balanitis Xerotica Obliterans (BXO), and that it was a non-sexually transmitted inflammation of the penis and that it is a condition that diabetic men are particularly susceptible to. She said that the best course of action was to have a blood test and in the meantime apply some Canesten cream to it in order to try and clear it up. Fortunately, the BXO did eventually clear up (thank God, because if it persisted she told me that I may have to consider getting myself circumcised, which of course sent all manner of alarm bells ringing in my head!), but the blood test did indeed show that I had a high blood sugar level so a few weeks later I had a second, fasting blood test which confirmed a diagnosis of Type 2 Diabetes.
Initially, I was shattered - I felt like my life was over. My mind was flooded with nightmarish visions of me in a diabetic coma or in hospital having to have one of my feet amputated. It was the last thing I expected to be diagnosed with!
Pretty soon I was given an appointment with the diabetes nurse at my local GP surgery and she really helped to put my mind at rest. I was prescribed Metformin and she informed me that I would need to make some changes to my diet, the obvious one of which was to cut out sugar and use artificial sweetener instead. I don't know what I would have done without her!
I decided rather than to live in denial about my condition I would embrace it! I immediately went on a diet and over the course of six months I lost 4 stones in weight and took more exercise in the form of swimming and cycling and I recently took up tennis. I even took part in Diabetes UK's 'Swim 22' challenge during which I swam (in stages) 22 miles (the equivalent of swimming the English Channel) and raised £1,000 in the process.
Now, 15 months on, my blood sugar is under control and my nurse is happy with my progress. And thanks to losing weight I now feel better than I have in years. Sure, I still have the odd 'bad day' when I feel depressed about not being able to enjoy the things I used to enjoy, but I console myself that things could be an awful lot worse. Fortunately those days are increasingly few and far between.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read my embarrassing story, I haven't had the courage to be able to share my story with friends and family yet (as far as they know, all I had was a 'rash', I didn't tell them where the 'rash' was however!) but it's been good to get it off my chest!
but it still aint easy, surely someone could come up with a better design!!
