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Weight and Muscle Loss!

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gbisignani

Newbie
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1
Type of diabetes
Type 2
I have actually joined for a significant other who basically does nothing to control his type 2 diabetes. He eats what he wants and doesn't take insulin because he can't afford it. He just got health insurance but has a $1000 deductible so he's still in a pickle. He has lost a lot of weight and muscle because of this. He doesn't feel or look good. Can anyone tell me what will ultimately happen to him if he keeps going in this direction? Thank you.
 
Hi @gbisignani and welcome to the forum. Can you tell us what your partner's HbA1c (blood sugar) figures are? I'm sorry to hear he can't afford medication. It might be possible to control his diabetes by lowering his carbohydrate intake - cutting out sugars and starchy carbs like pasta, potatoes, rice and bread. A lot of people on this forum have controlled their diabetes by adopting a Low Carbohydrate High Fat approach to eating.
If your partner can't control his condition it can lead to complications. I'm not going to go into those, I'm sure you can google that yourself. But they can be avoided.
 
The weight and muscle loss are strong indications that he may be misdiagnosed and have type 1 rather than type 2. If that is true, his body is getting little to no insulin which can kill him. Until that happens, his body is literally eating his muscle in an attempt to survive.

The EXACT same thing happened to me last year: I lost 30-40 lbs and the majority of which was muscle. Long story short, I ended up in the emergency room with blood sugar levels above 500.

If he's worried about the money, here's a pretty good way to put it: if he puts this off long enough, the $1000 deductible will be the least of his worries, and he'll need to start thinking about his MAXIMUM out-of-pocket annual deductible which could possibly be more than $10k.

This is NOT something to put off and had I gone long finally decided to go to the doctor to get blood work done, it was serious enough that it could have killed me (and that's not an exaggeration).
 
Diabetes is not something to be taken lightly it can get very bad very quickly and then he will find his choices severely limited TorqPenderloin is quite right. The answer to your question is Diabetes can be a life threatening disease also it's complications can be nasty so it's best not to wait to long to get things checked out.
 
I was waiting for Tork to say exactly what I wanted to say but I knew he'd be more eloquent. Same thing with me. Muscle, including organ muscle, weight loss, BS over 500 in hospital. They told me I was very close to death. Malnourished, protein deficient and muscle wasting. Nobody wants to go on insulin or pay for it but at the end of the day it is the only reason some of us are still alive. Don't take it lightly. It does sound as if he needs insulin
 
Hi. I agree your SO may well be a mis-diagnosed LADA hence the weight loss and need to have insulin. The implication is that his pancreas is failing to produce enough insulin. If ignored and he is a LADA then his blood sugar will go up and up, the body will burn fat and produce ketones. High blood sugar and ketones means ketoacidosis (DKA). He will feel really bad from the acidic blood and without urgent hospital treatment he will fade away. He must use a glucose meter and ketone strips (or a meter that does both) and go to hospital if they both get too high. In the meantime, keep the carb input very low.
 
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