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Typ1 or type 2

Diakat said:
Yes. Your numbers would get very high until you got really sick or got put on insulin anyway.
Do you think you have a misdiagnosis?
Tagging @Daibell and @Circuspony who may have experience
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Yes I do have experience because it happened to me 2 years ago. I was in my 40s so the GP surgery was convinced I must be type 2 but it took me 10 minutes on google when I got home to realise they were wrong. If you are type 1 and untreated then you will see some or all of the following;

  • Thirst - this isn't just 'I need a drink', more the absolute craving for liquid. If you've never had it then its really hard to explain that its almost a feeling of panic if you can't get glass after glass of water down you. You would push over small children for a glass of water.
  • Obsessive urge to go to the toilet all the time. Given you're drinking a lot its not surprising!
  • Dropping weight very quickly. In the space of 6 weeks I dropped over a stone, which I didn't really have to lose. It was all fat as well, so I looked awful.
  • Thrush is common but I got incredibly itchy skin
  • Tired. Every time I ate I wanted to sleep
  • Blurry vision. That was my first symptom but the optician put it down to me missing my eye check the year before. I knew something wasn't right because I'd had a consistent prescription for years. She just happened to mention that diabetics got it in passing, but obviously I was much too thin to be a diabetic. :arghh:
I think some of those symptoms can apply to T2s as well, but in the 2 weeks they had me on tablets I tried a low carb diet and my BG didn't drop below 25.

If you have been diagnosed as type 2 but your BG doesn't come down even with a low carb diet then that's the time to go back to the GP and insist on further testing. If you are showing ketones then you should go to A&E anyway. The hospital can run blood tests for antibodies which many type 1s show (but not all).
 
Mrs_A_Wrinkly said:
How would you know if you were wrongly diagnosed type2 if you were really type 1
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On my first meeting with my nurse after diagnosis I asked this question. I asked how do you know I am T2. She replied that were I T1 I would be poorly with a lot of symptoms and higher blood sugars than I had.
 
I don’t necessarily think it’s always easy to tell. There are a lot of people who are misdiagnosed, including lots on this forum.

For me, I’m 5 months since diagnosis as diabetic and still not given a ‘type’. My consultant said it may be he case that I will never fit into either category. I’ve given a blood sample for MODY testing so perhaps I will be that - but if not then who knows...

The right treatment is more important than the type of diabetes, for me any way!
 
There is a lot of crossover. With the general exception of rapid weight loss it’s really quite difficult to make any kind of reliable diagnosis based on the patient’s symptoms. For starters insulin resistance and insulin deficiency can present simultaneously to a clinician, even in instances of type 2. This is of course not at all helped by the steadfast refusal of our healthcare system to recognise merit in checking insulin profiles among the general population or ‘diagnosed’ type 2 diabetics.

In summary I don’t think it’s necessarily possible to make a type 1 diagnosis based solely on symptoms, particularly if the pancreas is still able to produce some insulin. To my knowledge an antibody test is needed in order to determine autoimmune insulin deficiency.
 
When i asked consultant if i was type 1 she shouted at me no if you were you would have been on the floor !this is why now 10 years after starting insulin i am being tested for type but it would have been much clearer if test was done before she put me on insulin
 
Hi. I share the views of the other posts. If you start losing weight rapidly without trying, are already quite slim, need to go to the loo a lot, are thirsty, perhaps have blurred vision these are strong hints for late onset T1 (LADA). If a low-carb diet and Metformin don't do enough to keep the BS down then ask for the two tests GAD and c-peptide to help confirm T1. There is no test for T2 as such other than the c-peptide which will show a high reading for T2. I had very high BS when diagnosed to the extent I left a thick white powdery deposit in the loo pan from expelled glucose! I was also hyper and not thinking straight. I never went into DKA but probably very close. I was never diagnosed as T1. Do push for the tests if you think you may be T1
 
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