Undiagnosed

[InVegas]

I was diagnosed as pre-diabetic in November (2015), and confirmed in May. I started having debilitating symptoms in October last year, although they had gradually become more noticeable during a two-year period when I was not regularly exercising.

Once the diagnosis sank in, I realized I wasn't really newly diagnosed, but had pretty much gone through life undiagnosed (althought I am pre-diabetic, my symptoms seem to be squarely in D2 territory). I could go on forever about all that entails and will add more later, but I am curious if anyone else realized they had gone undiagnosed since childhood when they found out they were diabetic as an adult. I am not finding much out there, and it seems to be a far different experience than being diabetic from the get-go or acquiring it later in life.

 

[Daibell]

Hi. It's unusual for T2 to be present but undiscovered for more than a year or so. T2 or T1 will normally progress so symptoms would eventually appear and it is unlikely to have been present for more than few years. The biggest problem with T2 is weight gain as you get older due to the appalling Western diet we have with too many carbs. Some of us have late onset T1 through a range of causes. I hope you are now having a lower-carb diet and you need to buy a glucose meter if you haven't already got one.

 

[InVegas]

Hi. It's unusual for T2 to be present but undiscovered for more than a year or so. T2 or T1 will normally progress so symptoms would eventually appear and it is unlikely to have been present for more than few years. The biggest problem with T2 is weight gain as you get older due to the appalling Western diet we have with too many carbs. Some of us have late onset T1 through a range of causes. I hope you are now having a lower-carb diet and you need to buy a glucose meter if you haven't already got one.

Yes, I actually started an all natural diet several weeks before my first glucose fasting test, so I don't know how high my blood sugar was when my vision was affected and I had trouble walking. I just know I felt healthier after two weeks of small meals five times a day than I had ever felt in my life, and I realized I had symptoms as early as age 6 that were noticed and talked about but the dots were never connected. Fatigue was the worst as I entered the job market, and I overused coffee for years until I got sick from a low pH level. I am deducing I was insulin resistant since birth and managed not to progress to diabetes 2 due to constantly working out.

The glucose meter was crucial for the next steps. I cut out foods that raised by insulin level that I wouldn't have known about otherwise. Goodbye pizza.

 

[chalup]

I was diagnosed as pre-diabetic in November (2015), and confirmed in May. I started having debilitating symptoms in October last year, although they had gradually become more noticeable during a two-year period when I was not regularly exercising.

Once the diagnosis sank in, I realized I wasn't really newly diagnosed, but had pretty much gone through life undiagnosed (althought I am pre-diabetic, my symptoms seem to be squarely in D2 territory). I could go on forever about all that entails and will add more later, but I am curious if anyone else realized they had gone undiagnosed since childhood when they found out they were diabetic as an adult. I am not finding much out there, and it seems to be a far different experience than being diabetic from the get-go or acquiring it later in life.

Hi there. I think that you were probably not diabetic as a child but, and it is a big butt, (pun intended) I do believe the metabolic malfunctions that eventually become full blown diabetes can be and are there from childhood. The insulin resistance that leads to the weight gain for me started at puberty with hormone changes and for some it seems to start even earlier. The insulin resistance combined with a typical western diet leads to weight gain which causes more insulin resistance which causes more weight gain and thus we get on the merry go round. It is a vicious circle and it seems the only way to stop it is to cut out the carbs and try to lose the weight. Unfortunately we rarely know what is going on until we are diagnosed with D or pre-D and by then damage has been done. I know that some people are diabetic that have never been overweight but that just confirms that we are all unique. There are certainly other causes and routes to diabetes and I am speaking of the majority of type 2 here.

 

[InVegas]

Hi there. I think that you were probably not diabetic as a child but, and it is a big butt, (pun intended) I do believe the metabolic malfunctions that eventually become full blown diabetes can be and are there from childhood. The insulin resistance that leads to the weight gain for me started at puberty with hormone changes and for some it seems to start even earlier. The insulin resistance combined with a typical western diet leads to weight gain which causes more insulin resistance which causes more weight gain and thus we get on the merry go round. It is a vicious circle and it seems the only way to stop it is to cut out the carbs and try to lose the weight. Unfortunately we rarely know what is going on until we are diagnosed with D or pre-D and by then damage has been done. I know that some people are diabetic that have never been overweight but that just confirms that we are all unique. There are certainly other causes and routes to diabetes and I am speaking of the majority of type 2 here.

Thanks for your response. My weight went up and down as a kid, but I never got very overweight. I never had stamina – I was able to run dashes but not miles – and my teachers in my early education were always saying I zoned out in class and I could never understand what they were talking about. Mood swings, headaches, inability to focus in class, muscle spasms and inflexibility, difficulty fighting infections – all got normalized from early on. I know the diet was bad, and there was a lot of stress, but the things I feel now are like amplified versions of how I felt as a kid. From what I've researched as late as the 80s people didn't get diagnosed until they were hospitalized with complications for the first time. "Pre-diabetes" is kind of misnomer, as I'm finding out, but I consider myself lucky to be low on the spectrum.

I dropped out of school, where I couldn't rest during the day and could only eat (poorly) midday, and went on to college where classes were spread out and I could rest in between, and I graduated with honors.