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Hiding diabetes?

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qimqim

Well-Known Member
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Is it possible to hide diabetes from a doctor who has recent results, if your sugar levels are normal even though you are taking pills?

This is an academic question, following a discussion when someone who is going for a job interview abroad is afraid that because he has diabetes they will not accept him afer the mandatory medical check-up.
 
Sorry, maybe I was not very clear. As I said this is simply an academic question. No one is going to hide the fact that he is, or is not, diabetic, and in any case I would have no interest in the outcome.

Let me rephrase the question: is it possible to be diabetic (type II) and be so fit that your sugar levels are normal, to the extent that a doctor cannot diagnose diabetes from blood test results?
 
So, and this is where I am trying to get to, the only way a doctor can diagnose diabetes from a blood test, is if the results show a high level of glucose. Is that right?
 
If a doctor is not specifically looking for diabetes and the routine blood tests showed 'normal' glucose levels then it would probably pass by.It depends on the battery of tests done.
 
Ahhhh.... that means that if the tests are comprehensive, the diabetes would show up if even if the sugar level was normal. What would be the test that would uncover the 'hidden' diabetes?

Sorry for going on, but I am interested in this.
 
Having said that you say 'taking pills' .Those pills would surely be disclosed in the medical history of the person and would alert a doctor to the condition.Big companies are usually pretty thorough in these things.
 
Sugarless Sue

There is no question of misleading anybody, as this is a hypothetical question. Assume someone is going to work in a company in Russia, or China, and they do a mandatory medical check-up, and shoot diabetics on the spot... What is to stop someone from hiding the fact that they are diabetic if they know that the blood test will show a normal sugar level, because that person went out of his way to get fit, diet and do whatever else was needed to get the level down?

Or are there comprehensive tests that would ALWAYS show the condition, no matter how normal your blood sugar is at the time?
 
They could probably hit you with an insulin clamp or something if they REALLY wanted to waste a lot of time and money. They might find evidence of insulin resistance in a lipid panel, but then many nondiabetics (or not-yet-diabetics) would show this.

IMO they would probably just look at fasting bloods, which miss a lot of diabetics anyway.

If they tested me now I'm sure they would find nothing untoward. A Glucose Tolerance Test is about the only thing I would either fail or come close to failing but this takes several hours.
 
qimqim said:
Great. Thanks.

I understand it now.

qimqim
Click to expand...

Put it this way, I still have the genes and always will, but I am no longer expressing them. Put me back on a high carb low fat diet and I would be back where I was in no time.
 
Do you have diabetes 1 or 2. If it is 2 how do you control your diet? What are the secrets?

You seem to be suggesting that low carb, high fat diet is good, when most advice I get states the opposite!
 
qimqim said:
Do you have diabetes 1 or 2. If it is 2 how do you control your diet? What are the secrets?

You seem to be suggesting that low carb, high fat diet is good, when most advice I get states the opposite!
Click to expand...


All Diet advice is personal. Each individual is different and there are many of us who use one particular Diet or adapt it to their own circumstances.
There is no such thing as a 'one size fits all Diet ' if you are a Diabetic. You have to do what is good for YOU.

Ken.
 
qimqim said:
Do you have diabetes 1 or 2. If it is 2 how do you control your diet? What are the secrets?

You seem to be suggesting that low carb, high fat diet is good, when most advice I get states the opposite!
Click to expand...

"Most advice" is probably responsible for the major increases of Type 2 and other cardiovascular diseases, and obesity. :(

Since the diet I was given made my rapidly worse it made sense to do the opposite.

My meter agreed with me

http://loraldiabetes.blogspot.com/2009/ ... -test.html

and so does my BP and my lipid panels.

So does this guy

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-prim ... continuum/

among many others
 
sugarless sue said:
If a doctor is not specifically looking for diabetes and the routine blood tests showed 'normal' glucose levels then it would probably pass by.It depends on the battery of tests done.
Click to expand...

Even with a BG of 8.2 in March 2001 my GP and a barrage of 'specialists' failed to diagnose me as diabetic when I had chest pain and severe fatigue, one comment from a specialist after a bike endurance test was that I was just 'unfit' - something that I didn't need to know as only a few years earlier I used to eat huge portions of relatively healthy food but burn it all off with around 8000 miles a year on a pushbike, with 3 or 4 days a week swimming half a mile before breakfast. As fatigue gradually set in the exercise reduced giving 20kg of weight gain in 5 years as I lost all endurance capability. Another 8 years and it peaked at another 18kg weight gain, bad sleep, being very drowsy after meals and constant snacking.

I was eventually diagnosed as T2 in April 2009, the 8.2 result only having come to light during a recent regular visit to check up on my asthma when the practice nurse pressed the wrong button and scrolled back too far in my medical history.

I guess I've probably being diabetic for 15 years, maybe more, moving from a BMI of 23 to 34.
 
m100 said:
I guess I've probably being diabetic for 15 years, maybe more, moving from a BMI of 23 to 34.
Click to expand...

Annoying isn't it?

I had the pleasure of being "diagnosed" several times by other diabetics over many years while my GP steadfastly refused to believe I wasn't making my symptoms up. Trouble is, my fasting BG was and still is "normal" and the eejit never thought to look further, like my 1 hour postprandials. Scarily I've even come across people who were running genuinely diabetic numbers or had failed a GTT in the past and had never been told, they only found out by reading their own notes later.
 
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