New here (although I've been lurking a bunch just recently!).
Newly diagnosed T2 - like, today.
So hi, all. I feel like this is going to become a second home, because right now I don't have the first clue.
A little shellshocked; this has all effectively happened in a matter of hours, really. Except it's been going on for ages, apparently.
I'm not one for going to the doctors, no matter how unwell I am. In fact, before yesterday, I hadn't been for 4 years, and previously 7 years before that, so my doctor tells me.
I have a bunch of 'stuff' I just... live with. I've had problems with my back since my early 20s. Sometimes I'm fine for months, and then sometimes I get weeks at a time where even the slightest movement (say, getting out of a chair...) can threaten to put it out. Sometimes I'll get a 'nerve pinch' that'll numb a leg for days at a time. And then it'll go away.
My eyes have been a problem since I was a small child. I won't bore you with the details, suffice it to say they just don't work like most people's eyes.
I've been an insomniac my whole life, and nothing I've tried has ever worked for more than a few days. And when I say I'm an insomniac, I mean I get around 3 hours sleep a night, and sometimes go 72 hours with no sleep at all. I've been tired for like 4 decades. It's my default state of existence.
I've always suffered from severe pressure headaches and 'fogginess'... but then apart from not sleeping, I spend like 12 hours a day staring at a computer screen, and have done my entire working life, as you do when you're a software developer (and really not very good at anything else...).
I spent a good deal of time back and forth to doctors for those various things in my youth, and frankly, got nowhere. My back issues were answered with a friggin resistance band and printed exercise sheet. My eye issues were answered with exercises involving my own finger. My insomnia was met with complete indifference (or rather, complete scepticism - I must be severely exaggerating my lack of sleep), and a suggestion to cut out coffee (yeah, right... it's literally the only reason I'm able to function) and the headaches attributed to same.
Which is why I just stopped bothering to seek medical advice.
Like I say, stuff you learn to live with. Plus, I'm getting older. I'll be 50 next year. Looking forward to my midlife crisis, tbh.
Then recently, the nerve pinch leg thing was getting worse... and not going away... to the point that I have a really severe throbbing pain in the butt almost constantly, and pins and needles in my foot most days.
But I deal with it like I've dealt with my back problems for decades, usually by walking it off. I walk everywhere - I don't even drive (because of the problem eyes!). I walk miles, every single day. To work, from work, to the shops and anywhere else I need to go, and around and about because I'm a nature photographer and fortunate enough to live in a beautiful rural area with acres of woodland. I probably walk 50 miles a week, easy.
And I'd been meaning to get an eye test, knowing full well I really needed new glasses, for some time. Partly because I also needed a new optician, because the last one was utterly useless. I finally went a few weeks ago because I was experiencing blurriness making it hard to read my screen. They ran a veritable battery of tests, including an eye pressure test, and the optician remarked it seemed very high, and that she'd like to test it again on another day. That would have been this weekend. Guess I don't really need the confirmation, now.
So then some alarm bells started ringing, that all these things I attributed to other entirely separate long standing causes actually seemed to have one thing in common... but I'm still doubtful (I'm usually making fun of people for Googling their own diagnosis!).
Easy way to check, though! So I went on Amazon and bought a blood glucose testing kit. It arrived Tuesday. So that evening, I unbox and give it a go. I haven't really eaten anything in 6 or 7 hours. I get a reading of 21.1 mmol/L. I look at the chart, which says 'DANGEROUS - seek immediate medical attention'. I laugh. That can't be right.
So the following morning, I try again. And get a 19.9. My initial thought is that I need to send the thing back to Amazon.
Still, I decide I better go seek immediate medical attention as advised, if only to get a (hopefully non)confirmatory reading. I told them my levels, but that I'm sceptical. They usher me in and take a test on their kit, and I get an 18.1.
Oh...
On the bright side, I guess my testing kit is working ok.
So then I'm instantly shipped off to the hospital for a raft of blood and urine tests, and told to come back 10.30 the following morning. Today.
Turns out I pretty much have sugar syrup oozing through my veins. I've been prescribed Metformin 500mg, to be ramped up from one a day to 3 a day over 3 weeks.
The frustrating thing is, with a few exceptions, I already have exactly the kind of diet recommended for a diabetic. I'm pretty low carb, not through any conscious effort, but because that's what I prefer to eat; it's all salads, veg, fish, chicken, red meat, nuts and dairy. I don't do sweets or cakes (except jaffa cakes. Who can resist jaffa cakes?). I rarely eat pasta or rice. If I eat bread it's wholemeal, olive bread or 'ancient grain' bread. I can't even recall the last time I had chips! Even my pizzas are 'No Dough' pizzas, because cauliflower is life. (Ok. Bacon is life, but cauliflower is a very close second). I drink a couple of pints of German lager a couple of times a week. The last time was like 5 days before my first readings, though.
So that doesn't seem to bode well from the standpoint of being able to manage it with a change of diet and exercise. Except I do like my fruit (grapes, plums, kiwi fruit, bananas and nectarines), which I guess I'll be cutting down on now. The only major change I think I can make really is to be more regular about my meals to avoid high and low peaks; I tend to skip breakfast, graze on a bag of mixed nuts throughout the day and eat a large meal in the evening.
The depressing thing is learning that the leg pain and numbness is likely neuropathic and is therefore irreversible nerve damage. I honestly don't know if I can reconcile with the idea that the pain I have in my leg right now is not going to go away, when just standing still or sitting down hurts like hell and the pins and needles almost sensory overload. Touching my own foot these days is done through gritted teeth and makes me break out in a sweat.
And I probably just wasted a bunch of money on new glasses that are gonna need changing if I manage to get my BG levels to somewhere below pure cane sugar. Still, it turns out that the few quid I just spent on a BG meter might just be the wisest purchase I've ever made.
So, I guess all the warning signs were there. Except I could and did easily attribute them elsewhere.
And apparently I can look forward to getting to know my doctor a whole lot better. And probably you guys.
Sorry. That turned out to be quite an epically long introduction. Well done if you made it this far!
