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Im so desperately confused!!

F

freebirdsfly

Newbie
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4
Im just going to try and blurt all this stuff out, and hopefully make some sense!

For the past 3-4 years in hindsight, I have had a problem with sugar. I would be at work, and suddennly come over feeling really faint. I would sense that I 'had' to have some sugar. As time has gone on, these episodes were happening throughout the day. I would feel like I would faint if I didnt get some.
I was suffering with acute anxiety at the time, and just assumed this was a symptom 'in my head'.
In December of 2009, I lost approx 2 stone. (I weighed only 8 stone - so I became very underweight.)
I continued being underweight until June of 2010, when I made a very foolish mistake (after being repeatedly accused of being anorexic, which i found distressing as I wasnt!) and I began eating the most horrendous food. I was consuming 2-3 doughnuts per day. 2-3 chocolate bars, crisps, litres of chocolate milk etc to try and gain some weight. I did put on about half a stone, in a few weeks.
I then decided to go to the drs as I was worried I had a tape worm (lol!) as I had seen something odd in my faeces. He also asked for a urine sample..which showed I had way too much sugar in my urine. They immediately sent me to hospital, where I had a blood sugar level of 18. They ran no further tests, and simply told me I have type 1 diabetes.
Quite simply, is there anybody here who is a type 2 who has had equally high blood sugar? or is it like...type 1 is from I dont know, 14 upwards and if your below 14 your type 2? sorry if that sounds retarded. I just feel a little uncomfortable that I havent had any tests done...just a clinical diagnosis! I am 26, no diabetes in my immediate or extended family...
I also followed a strict diet for a week and was able to come off the insulin and mantain levels of between 6 and 11 (i know 11 is too high...) when im on insulin i just go hypo and end up spiking everyday to 18. Im so confused, I just dont know what to do. Any advice, or anyone had anything similar? the drs at the hospital told me I had only had diabetes for a few weeks. I absolutely categorically lost the weight 8 months before, and had felt unwell for atleast 18months ( i bet youre wondering why i didnt go to the drs...i dont like needles lol!)
thanks so much, Becki x
 
Hi there,

To clear up a little of your confusion Type 1 is an autoimmune disease and T2 is either running out of insulin or becoming insulin resistant. As someone has told you that you had only developed a sugar problem over a few weeks I imagine a blood test was done to confirm what Type of diabetes you have and to provide the right treatment. Eating heaps of sugar did not give you T1 diabetes.

When T1's are newly diagnosed (and more so if diagnosed as an adult) you may have a fairly long 'honeymoon' period so that could explain why you may have been able to cope for a short time off insulin and you can be prone to hypo. During the 'honeymoon' you are still producing some of your own insulin and this could take a long time to cease. You can read a lot of info on here about the honeymoon period.

I suppose you will never know if your earlier problems were diabetes related. You may have had a virus that then triggered your immune system to attack your beta cells in your pancreas. There is a lot that isn't known.

You can really only just knuckle down and test your blood sugar often and manage levels as best you can. Keeping to a healthy diet and counting carbs helps to know how much insulin you need to avoid big spikes and hypos.

All the best
 
If you seriously doubt your diagnosis I would speak to your consultant and raise your concerns. Ask if a test can be done to confirm your diabetes. If you're in the honeymoon period you will still have some insulin which would explain you managing to keep readings between 6 and 11 without taking insulin. It is dangerous to not take insulin if you're a T1 so I'd seriously advise against doing that again! My daughter has T1 and we have no known family history of diabetes of any type so it's not necessarily hereditary. Some studies have linked the onset of T1 to a virus (perhaps you had a virus that caused the earlier problems?) and some suggest drinking cows milk. These are just theories (and there are many other theories out there) no one knows what causes it to develop. Whatever you do, don't blame yourself for getting it. Eating lots of sugary food didn't cause it. Stay focused on getting it under control. If you're having lots of hypos you need to make an appointment with your consultant and have him adjust your insulin to avoid the hypos.
 
Thanks guys for your responses. The hospital has run no tests. I have been privately for the hba1c test which showed an average of 12 for 3 months I believe? This totally contradicts what the specialist told me. I guess I will just have to push for a c peptide test. Has anyone had a GAD test. I'm a little unclear as to what that is for?
 
I guess they are thinking type 1 due to your age and weight - from what diabetes doctors and nurses have told me, if you are under 30 it is more likely to be type 1. Maybe they can tell from how the insulin doses effect your blood sugar that it is not type 2, like Jen says type 2 diabetes is insulin resistance, so someone with type 2 diabetes would need to inject larger doses of insulin to have the same effect than someone with type 1.

They did run tests - they tested your urine and your blood.

The number from the hba1c is different from the number you get from a finger prick blood test, it's measuring blood sugar in a different way. With type 1 diabetes they should be doing hba1c tests quite often to start with to help you get it under control (it was every 3 months for me), you said you had to pay for this, have they not done it on the nhs?

You feeling faint and needing to eat just sounds like you were quite thin rather than anything diabetes related.

iirc C-peptide test is a measure of remaing beta cell function, GAD antibody test and islet cell antibody test tests for the antibodies killing the beta cells thus causing type 1 diabetes.

Re hypos, have you got contact details of your diabetes team? There are different types of insulin, maybe they can suggest different ones that would suit you better.
 
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