Undiagnosed but high blood sugar

[Ballofwool]

Even woman's thingy watchimacallit every month raises it a bit!

How are you feeling now?

This made me laugh, such a British way of saying it!

I am feeling ok now, I'm sticking to the low carb diet and feeling normal. I think I had a bit of a funny panic after the endocrinologist.

I went to work today at my new job, and I got to taste loads of expensive cured meats, because I had to practice how to use the meat slicer. Finally, low carb eating pays off!

 

[Lamont D]

So glad for you!

Let us know how you are doing, especially after the endocrinologist and keep recording everything!

 

[RuthW]

Please RuthW, don't confuse the issue. Blood sugars in non-diabetics do NOT rise up to 13. Any measured venous blood sugar above 11 is diagnostic of diabetes, according to WHO guidelines. See here: https://www.diabetes.org.uk/About_u...itoring/New_diagnostic_criteria_for_diabetes/

Sorry, but you are wrong. They can. You don't get a diagnosis of diabetes from one high blood sugar.

If you read that link you posted it says, "diabetes symptoms PLUS " a reading over 11. So that means you can have a reading over 11 and NOT have diabetes.

The symptoms are primary. A one-off blood sugar is an indicator but it is not diagnostic in itself.

The OP has other symptoms which indicate other disorders, not necessarily diabetes.

 

[RuthW]

These normal readings certainly don't apply to me! When eating a cup of rice, my blood sugar was over 9 for several hours! And when eating toast it always rises over 10.

I don't know what that previous poster was talking about with the comment about readings over 13 being normal... That goes against every available resource on the subject... Bizarre thing to say!

I realize that after 48 years of Type 1, I may be getting dementia or something and I bow to your undoubtedly superior Google skills. However, your symptoms are not typical of a straightforward case of Type 1 or LADA IMHO.

I do think you should see an endocrinologist, however, since your extreme anxiety, your emaciation, and your heart problems could be due to diabetes (though the length of time that you have been underweight and your lack of thirst, extreme urination, etc tend NOT to indicate diabetes). But a C-Peptide test will tell you straight away. Then, your endocrinologist might test for hyperthyroidism, which seems to me to fit your symptoms rather better, and can cause the kind of blood sugars you are showing.

Btw, I didn't say readings over 13 are "normal". I said they are possible for "normies." That remains true.

You could google "hyperthyroidism and blood glucose." You'll find your symptoms.

 

[Ballofwool]

I realize that after 48 years of Type 1, I may be getting dementia or something and I bow to your undoubtedly superior Google skills. However, your symptoms are not typical of a straightforward case of Type 1 or LADA IMHO.

I do think you should see an endocrinologist, however, since your extreme anxiety, your emaciation, and your heart problems could be due to diabetes (though the length of time that you have been underweight and your lack of thirst, extreme urination, etc tend NOT to indicate diabetes). But a C-Peptide test will tell you straight away. Then, your endocrinologist might test for hyperthyroidism, which seems to me to fit your symptoms rather better, and can cause the kind of blood sugars you are showing.

Btw, I didn't say readings over 13 are "normal". I said they are possible for "normies." That remains true.

You could google "hyperthyroidism and blood glucose." You'll find your symptoms.

You seem quite aggressive in tone, and I wonder why... It was your choice to read this and respond. I don't mean to offend you in any way, this thread is just about trying to get support and information that might help get to the bottom of my symptoms.

Of course, google isn't equivalent to a specialist, but it is possible to read scientific studies on the internet to get information. I used to do this all the time during my university degree, and have recently looked at quite a few studies which show that blood sugar over 9 isn't normal or healthy... Although you can certainly argue it's possible in someone who doesn't actually have diabetes.

My GP already tested me for hyperthyroidism, and determined that I don't have it. If my anxiety goes away when on a low carb diet, I can only conclude that it was in some way linked to higher-than-normal blood sugar... What else could explain it?

Since switching to a low carb diet, I have been able to gain two kilos in less than two weeks! I was losing weight no matter how many carbohydrates I ate before switching to low carb. I hope the endocrinologist can give me advice on what's going on!

 

[RuthW]

OK, I also thought you were impolite (" I don't know hat that previous poster was talking about"). But what I replied also referenced Rillum, who said I was "confusing the issue". Actually, as you now agree, I wasn't. What is aid was true. The point is that your symptoms are not typical. There still may be something else going on.

So let's put it behind us. My point was only that you have many symptoms which are not typical of untreated diabetes - like putting on weight now, for example. So, yes, an endo may be able to find out what it is. I do hope so because the heart and circulation symptoms sound really quite alarming. And I hope you have something much easier to deal with than diabetes!

The other point is that thyroid problems and diabetes often go together because they are both actually symptoms of an underlying autoimmune disorder, rather than each being a "disease in itself". And they co-occur with a lot of other autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, schizophrenia, bipolar, coeliac disease, pernicious anemia, etc, etc. Because of the historical perception of the body having separate systems (a convenient fiction, which leads to an othopaedic doctor treating one aspect of an autoimmune disease, while an endocrinologist treats another, etc.), autoimmune diseases can take a while to diagnose correctly.

And that's why I asked about your family's history and your long term low weight and you eating habits. So, for example, your low weight could be associated with coeliac, which would also immediately be alleviated by low-carbing........

I am not a doctor, but your endo should take a very, very extensive family and personal history because your symptoms are not straightforward.

 

[Ballofwool]

I agree, let's put it behind us and focus on being positive! I think my previous comment was written too hastily whilst walking back from work, so maybe I didn't take the usual time to express myself as politely as I should have! I was confused as I thought you were saying high blood sugar is totally normal, rather than saying it's not necessarily diabetes.

Interestingly, I have discovered that my mum appears to have the same thing. She never eats carbohydrates, and she has been this way her whole life. She has also always been underweight. She recently told me she discovered in her teens that eating carbohydrates made her feel terrible, and simply stopped eating them, thinking it was normal to feel extremely unwell after eating a sandwich or cake. She called these the "wrong foods" and told herself that in future she would never eat these "wrong foods". She determined the wrong foods by how unwell they made her feel. I have never known her to eat a slice of bread or a packet of crisps in my lifetime! She would rather not eat if that's all that was available.

I am baffled, to be honest, because I always thought she was just into healthy eating! It turns out she actually becomes very physically unwell, like me, if she eats a high carbohydrate food...

 

[Ballofwool]

As a child I'd eat cakes and bread and so on, without issue... But if I ever tried to offer my mother some of these foods, she would say "I can't eat that gloopy/sugary/bad stuff"

I thought she meant she didn't like to eat unhealthily, rather than that she had some physical symptoms as a result of eating it... she has now told me this is what she actually meant all along!

I think about how much goes unsaid, even between close family members...

 

[Ballofwool]

My point was only that you have many symptoms which are not typical of untreated diabetes - like putting on weight now, for example. So, yes, an endo may be able to find out what it is.

I just had another thought about this part. The reason T1 diabetics lose weight is due to insufficient insulin secretion by the body, right? And this insulin is needed in order to store the glucose for later. So if you eat a high carb meal, and push your blood sugar up to 9 or 10 for the entire time the meal is digested, then you won't receive any nutrition from the meal.

By contrast, if you eat a low carb, high fat diet (which is what I'm currently doing), then you will gain weight because you are not relying on insulin to store the energy. So in my view, it is entirely consistent with T1 diabetes; not that I'm saying that's necessarily what I have!

Please do tell me if I've missed something here in my understanding of the processes.

 

[Lamont D]

I will wait for your appointment and your results from tests.

Only a test can tell what type of condition that you have!

 

[Brunneria]

I just had another thought about this part. The reason T1 diabetics lose weight is due to insufficient insulin secretion by the body, right? And this insulin is needed in order to store the glucose for later. So if you eat a high carb meal, and push your blood sugar up to 9 or 10 for the entire time the meal is digested, then you won't receive any nutrition from the meal.

By contrast, if you eat a low carb, high fat diet (which is what I'm currently doing), then you will gain weight because you are not relying on insulin to store the energy. So in my view, it is entirely consistent with T1 diabetes; not that I'm saying that's necessarily what I have!

Please do tell me if I've missed something here in my understanding of the processes.

Hi

It's not really like that, although I can see why it looks that way...

Most people lose weight on low carb high fat, certainly to start with. The reasons are quite complex, involving a number of things including smaller portions and greater satiety, because fat is so satisfying, the body switching to using fat rather than glucose as it's primary fuel (making it more practiced at using fat reserves as well as fat in meals), and for over weight type 2s, there is often something called insulin resistance, which plays a huge part when we eat carbs, and less so when we don't, esp if we are in ketosis.

Since you are not over weight, you have less reason for insulin resistance than most.

If you eat enough carbs and have insufficient insulin to cope, you still digest the food, and you still get the nutrition, it just doesn't get put away into the body's fat stores to keep for later. Instead, BG stays high (and it can go A LOT higher than 9 or 10), hanging around in the blood until the energy is used, or insulin eventually arrives (by injection or a belated phase 2 insulin response, or the kidneys filter it out, recognising how harmful it is - that's the excess peeing).

If you have been excess peeing, then you may have been dumping glucose in your urine. If not, then you will have been getting all the nutrition.

But there are so many different hormone and metabolic things going on in all of us that I'm afraid all that is a terrible over simplification!

 

[Rillum]

No, Ballofwool actually got it right. Back before insulin treatment type 1 diabetics wasted away while eating lots of food, since the cells of the body can't access the sugar in the blood.
The problem in type 1 diabetics and type 2 are very different.

But I'm not saying that Ballofwool has type 1, I agree with RuthW that there's not enough info yet.

And I'm sorry if I was rude to you RuthW, it just seemed like you had not read the prior info in the thread.

 

[Brunneria]

Yup, and type 1s or type 2s flush glucose out in the pee, as I mentioned. But there are other things happening too. It's complex.

 

[Ballofwool]

I'm certainly not trying to suggest that I have it either, I think the specialist needs to do more tests and more information is needed

Could be reactive hypoglycaemia not diabetes, could be something else altogether...

 

[Lamont D]

Did you notice I ducked out of that one!


T1, haven't got a clue about it!

 

[Ballofwool]

Did you notice I ducked out of that one!


T1, haven't got a clue about it!

Aww Nosher, there's no shame at all in not knowing about something...

The worse thing is pretending to know about something when you totally don't. Haha!

 

[brenda walker]

I think there's probably something more at play here, I doubt anxiety alone could manifest itself quite so physically.[/QUOTE]
Anxiety can manifest it self in far more serius ways than this, It can be debilitating. My sympathies to anyone suffering it.

 

[Ballofwool]

This is a little... Well, embarrassing...

But the cardiologist I went to asked me to do a 24 hour urine collection to rule out some relatively rare types of tumour that can apparently produce symptoms of POTS. She said that if I had this, then they would find raised levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline in my urine. I am not too worried about that, as I think they are quite rare!

Anyway, I finally got round to doing this urine collection yesterday. I noticed my urine is always dark, dark, dark yellow and cloudy! Almost looks orange-brown. And also, it has a really strong smell that almost knocked me out when I re-opened my collection bottle!

I smelled it again and it smelled like... Like... Sugar and something rotting. Really sweet and unpleasant. I didn't tell the receptionist at hospital when I gave her the sample, because I thought it would be weird and probably pointless. But now I think... Erm... Is this ok?

I did drink tea and a couple of glasses of squash, so I don't think I was overly dehydrated or anything.

 

[Rillum]

Its definitely not adrenalin smelling! Other than that I can't say.

 

[Ballofwool]

Well that's good, I suppose! I wouldn't like to have one of these tumours of course!

Actually I just thought that they will notice when testing the sample, so I probably don't need to tell them.