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T1D onset during the Pandemic

Doug88

Active Member
Messages
32
Hi all,

I was diagnosed with T1D near the start of the pandemic at the age of 32. At the time, there was no testing available, so I'll never know whether it was the Rona that triggered my onset. I've been interested in keeping up with the research on the subject though - there appears to still be a lot of unknowns. I was wondering whether anybody else was diagnosed during the pandemic and about their experiences.

For info, there's some discussion of the remaining uncertainties in the first of the following links and a large scale study looking into the issue on the second link.
https://www.diabetes.org.uk/about_us/news/new-worse-cases-coronavirus
https://covidiab.e-dendrite.com/
 
I guess the first question would be were you ill with C19 before your diagnosis?
 
bulkbiker said:
I guess the first question would be were you ill with C19 before your diagnosis?
Click to expand...

Oh yeah I forgot to mention that. Yeah I had a throat infection and cough that I picked up off my wife after she'd been travelling around the UK with work. It seemed pretty normal for the first week and then quite rapidly progressed through the normal diabetes onset (extreme thirst and peeing etc.). Eventually I drove to hospital and passed out in the car park just shy of DKA. After that I was practically blind for a week and lost about a week of my memory....since then recovery has been pretty good and things are generally under control now.
 
Geez 126 is stupid. Must have been rough, we're you in hospital already because of covid then? Well done on getting back down to 42 btw.
 

So probably not then?

Not sure a throat infection fits the C19 diagnostic pattern does it?
 
bulkbiker said:
So probably not then?

Not sure a throat infection fits the C19 diagnostic pattern does it?
Click to expand...
You know it's hard to tell. I mean I had a cough that lasted for a fortnight whilst taste buds were pretty unaffected. My wife who also had the infection was running a fever. It all gets complicated to discern though as the t1d onset had its own symptoms that get mixed in there too.
 

I think to be fair that no-one "knows" what causes T1 to develop but in many it seems to be accompanied by an infection, in others trauma of some kind.
I wasn't trying to imply it was nothing to do with the infection but it's a bit too tempting to blame C19 for everything in oour current situation..
 

Oh absolutely. I completely agree, and I don't think covid caused my onset of T1D. To be honest, in daily life, I never really even think about it. I was asked by a friend yesterday whether I thought Covid led to the onset of T1D and my answer was something like:

"I dunno, maybe it was Covid I had and maybe it contributed...I'll probably never know and I guess it doesn't matter much."
 
Antibodies are cross reactive with a number of human tissues so could induce autoimmune conditions like type 1 diabetes ... but it is a worryingly long list of tissues see for example here.
 
Extreme flu in February 2020 with covid symptoms but no testing available.

Looking back - weight loss started in the summer of 2020. Put it down to work related stress

diagnosed with covid in November 2020.

walked into my gp after encouragement from my mum regarding weight loss. Blood test taken morning of NYE

diagnosed type 1 znt8 positive in January 2021 and a hba1c of 103

Last hba1c taken 26th august at 5.3%
 
Last July 2020 for me. Because I was losing weight very quickly (3 stones) within a few weeks and going to the toilet a lot and blurred vision, had a blood test at 15.30 at 22.00 I received a phone call from the hospital to ask, if I was ok. My HbA1c was 138. That didn't mean anything to me. Hospital then said my GP would call me the following morning to discuss everything. They said I was T2 and put me onto metformin. After 3 months I was still losing weight. So I had a c-peptide test and a scan to check to my pancreas. So November I was told I was T1. Totally out of the blue. I am fit and healthy, no one in my family has diabetes. All this was during lockdown. It's now been a year since diagnosed, I'm now down to HbA1c 60 and still working on getting it lower. Blurred vision & weight is now back to normal (thank goodness).
 

Yeah living through the misdiagnosis of T2 must have been pretty trying. It's good to hear things are getting back under control now.

I think maybe your story highlights one issue that might arise (assuming coronavirus did contribute to onset of type 1). It's possible that there might be a larger number of people who don't look like a 'typical' person with the onset of T1D and so might be misdiagnosed, prolonging their suffering.

I was lucky in this regard, the doctor guessed it on day one and gave me insulin. It was then confirmed a couple weeks later. That first dose of insulin though! Felt like nectar from heaven.
 

Firstly, kudos for mixing you A1C units. I'm becoming a units conversion master these days.

So it sounds like maybe your T1D had been slowly developing for sometime before maybe some infection like covid pushed it over the edge?
 
jonathan183 said:
Antibodies are cross reactive with a number of human tissues so could induce autoimmune conditions like type 1 diabetes ... but it is a worryingly long list of tissues see for example here.
Click to expand...

Yeah I think I had actually read a press release on that study too. I think I'm trying to collect the full bingo list of those autoimmune conditions now.
 
The thing is ANY virus can trigger an autoimmune response so the Rona doesn't have unique properties there. The mechanism is that cytakine storm post the active infection in which your body unhelpfully goes into immune overdrive. I don't think it is known why your pancreatic beta cells get targeted hence why we're nowhere near a way to prevent type 1. Low vitamin D may be involved as T1 rates are higher in Nordic countries.
You may have had covid and of course everyone is hyper aware of sequala from this infection. What's unfortunate to me is that you may not have had the usual support from the NHS etc. (face to face consultations, access to education courses) which I think is the most important thing going forward...
 
I was diagnosed with type 1 in September, haven't had Covid as far as I know, but my diabetes symptoms started in early August after my second jab in July. Of course I'm fully pro-vaccine and would never say this outside a forum like this, but a small part of me wonders if there's a link given that I can't think of any other cause of my diabetes
 
There's always a reason but sometimes diabetes T1 seems random but more accurately, your cause is unknown and may never be known. When I was 10 I was diagnosed in September after a move of house and school but since we can't avoid random interactions with either stress or immune systems challenges sich as a vaccine (you ar in NoMansLand for 2 weeks before you are safer, I can't see the value in speculation and correlation doesn't equal causation. I hope you are adapting to the diagnosis, not that you have much choice but its a bit of a process to get used to the new regime and it's seemingly random variations IMO!
 
I was diagnosed type 1 this summer. I am 32 and my annual Hba1c came back only after I had covid when it first hit. I think my diabetes has definitely developed since having covid. I have ups and downs of pre diabetes for the last 10 years though but never thought I would come out with type 1 even though it runs in my family.
 
Any viral infection could trigger it, so even if it wasnt C-19 maybe another infection triggered it.

I was told that a severe flu (oh boy it was bad) was the likely cause of me having diabetes. I had it in Dec and diagnosed the following May.
 
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