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Westude

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Hello. I have just joined the forum and so thought I would introduce myself.

A diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes was the last thing I expected when my toes went numb in January 2020. I had no other symptoms.

I thought I was as fit as a fiddle. I was a very active 56 year old. I was a competitive rower racing at national masters level and I was training intensively 5 times a week and frequently racing and winning against younger opponents. My training scores were improving month on month. BMI was 21. Blood pressure fine. Cholesterol 4.8. Not had a sick day off work since 1989. Never smoked. Infrequent drinker. And then my toes went numb.

A blood test in March 2020 showed my HbA1c to be 119 (mmol/l). My GP was surprised that I didn't have an insatiable thirst or debilitating fatigue.

I was prescribed Metformin (500mg. 2 in the morning and 2 in the evening). I cut sugar from my diet. At my last blood test in July my HbA1c level had dropped to 82 (mmol/l), so things are moving in the right direction.

My toes are still numb. I have eased off on the intensity of my training initially as a result of Covid19 restrictions but more recently, over the last couple of months, because of lethargy and frequently feeling fatigued. I have got used to the numbness in my toes but I am finding the fatigue difficult to deal with.

I have found that a lot of the generic diabetes and dietary advice which I have come across online and in leaflets tends to assume that I am over-weight and under-active, which I am not. I would like to be able to disentangle weight-loss advice from advice aimed purely at lowering my blood sugar level.
 
You could ask for a referral pathway based on your BMI at 21 and your HbA1c really high on diagnosis, to get further testing to see how much insulin your body is producing, a c-peptide test, and a GAD antibody test.
 
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Hi. With a BMI of 21 you may want to check that you aren't Late onset T1 (LADA) rather than T2. This involves two tests i.e. GAD for antibodies and C-Peptide for insulin level check.
 
Thanks all for the welcomes and the advice.

I don't have a glucose meter. It is something I will think about if my blood sugar level hasn't continued to fall when I have my next blood test and review but I don't relish a future regime of sharp things being jabbed into me on a regular basis.

I am pretty sure I have type 2, not late onset type 1. It will have been brought on by the shear amount of sugar I was consuming. I had assumed that I was just burning it all off with my intensive exercise programme but in reality I was just overloading my body with sugar faster than my body could process it. Sugar in tea, several full packets of biscuits with cups of tea each day, large puddings/cakes/buns/ice cream after every meal, rice puddings for breakfast/supper, at least a 4 pack of chocolate bars a day (boosts, wispas, twix, twirls), grazing on jelly babies/biscuits/honey roast nuts/sweets when driving, jam/honey on sandwiches/toast between meals and for supper. And when I say puddings after meals they were big. I would regularly have a full Jamaican Ginger cake or Golden Syrup cake with a pint of custard.

Despite all this my core diet was pretty balanced and healthy (5 a day etc) but I also had this massive sugar intake going on at the same time. I cringe when I think about it now but I just couldn't see the harm it was doing to me.

I cut all these sugary foods from my diet as soon as I received my diagnosis. It has been hard at times but I have been strict with myself and in the first 4 months saw my HbA1c level fall by 37 points. Hopefully it will continue falling and I will be able to manage it with diet and metformin. I really don't like injections and finger pricks.
 
Hi @Westude, I agree with the previous two posters. Your HbA1c doesn't seem to me to have gone down as much as I'd expect over 6 months and is still high - enough to cause fatigue, especially with a radical change to your diet. I was diagnosed when I was 31, slim and fit, and despite classic symptoms, my GP still insisted we try metformin first. Unsurprisingly after 6 weeks I was re-diagnosed and on insulin and feeling loads better.

I think anyone who injects insulin understands your reluctance - I can clearly remember the first time I injected myself, and poo-pooing the people who said that in time it'll just be part of your daily routine. Well, they were right, and the injecting part is, certainly for me, the least of the problems living with diabetes. It's the never-a-day-off management that's far harder, though that's made much easier by this site, where people all want to help and understand what you're dealing with. It's also the case that a number of people with T2 need insulin, so your final diagnosis may not rule out that need anyway.

Good luck, hope you get sorted out soon whatever that takes, and that you can reverse the neuropathy.
 
How much carbohydrate are you eating these days?
The problem for diabetics is not just sugar, but all carbohydrate, and if you are really sensitive, like me, reducing intake to 40 gm of carbs a day has only resulted in a Hba1c of 42, which is, admittedly, the top end of normal, and I see under 8mmol/l of glucose after eating a meal, often under 7. It might help to get a blood glucose tester, so you can see what your levels are, and just in case you are not a boring ordinary type two after all.
 
Hello @Westude and welcome to this superb website. I find that when I am eating bread and particularly potatoes my blood sugar rises a great deal. It is a shame you don't want to get a blood sugar monitor as I've found that mine has helped me greatly to identify my particular foods causing sharp rises. Good luck with your continuing battle with blood sugar.
 
The pricks from a bg tester aren't very bad at all. Use the side of a finger and its done in milliseconds. Much easier than rowing training 5 times a week! And gives instant results. I wouldn't be without mine, especially as NHS is reducing and cancelling many of the regular diabetes checks these days
 
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