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Prior to diagnosis, did you ignore/miss any symptoms?

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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Me again! The symptom that finally sent me to my doctor was persistent thrush. It hardly ever seems to appear on symptom lists even tho its pretty common. Why's this? Cos it's "rude"? :confused: I might've gone to the doctor earlier if I'd known.
 
DeusXM said:
Out of interest, does anyone else think that a radio campaign quoting little snippets from all these stories might have been more effective in getting people to check their diabetes risk than the massive-posters-of-people-crying campaign that Diabetes UK went with?
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I like that idea Deus. It makes a lot of sense.
 
DeusXM said:
A much better option than the DUK one would have been something like a poster with a confident, healthy looking woman with "I was tired and thirsty all the time. I thought it was because I was a busy working mum. Actually, it was because I had untreated diabetes." Then follow up with some print saying 'Diabetes can affect anyone at any age, and if ignored can be serious and even life-threatening. But if properly managed, you'll be healthy as anyone and it won't slow you down. Check your risk at diabetes.org.uk'

I swear that would have a)made people understand their risk and symptoms better, b)made them less frightened about getting tested and c)made those of us with diabetes feel less like the walking dead or a tragedy in slow motion.
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love it - tell them now!
 
More agreement with Deus's idea. Obviously would need a few posters to cover a range of sexes, ages, ethnic groups etc. Northerner has direct links with DUK, so he's the best person to draw the organisation's attention to this thread.
 
My diagnosis was perhaps more by general consenses, I developed T2 when I was pregnant with my last child (26yrs ago). Which got better after his birth. But they always said it would come back in time.
And it did, having a blood test one time they included the BS one and it came back as 8 anything over 7 they said was a diagnosis. That was 10 yrs ago now, still diet controlled luckly.

No real symtoms before, apart from no energy, no weight loss (unfortunatly) 🙂
 
No real symtoms before, apart from no energy, no weight loss (unfortunatly)
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One of the things that throws a lot of people is that the most obvious sign of T1 diabetes is weight loss, whereas arguably in T2s, the complete opposite happens - insulin resistance leads to more insulin production, which leads to more fat storage and less fat metabolism.
 
It is so much eaisier to put all the pieces together in hind sight, but yes I was another who probably should have realised something was going on much earlier. Looking back at photos it's clear I was not right for quite a while.

I was so so tired I could barely make it through the day without a nap. However like others I put it down to having two small children, one who didn't sleep through the night yet. Mums are supposed to be tired right.

I also had a dry throat, not drinking loads of water at once but wanting to have something to sip at almost constantly.

The one the finally drove me to the doctors though was my periods becoming very erratic and lasting ages each time. Though even after diagnosis I was told this must be due to something else once I got my blood sugars down it has never happened again.

I went to the doctors and was told to come back for blood to be taken, which I did a couple of days later.I was told to ring in a week for the results, but got a phone call from the hospital later that day telling me to come in NOW. I did ask if it could wait till morning but was told in no uncertain terms that it was not. Started on an insulin drip that night.

Come morning I felt like I had so much energy it was unbelievable. It was only then I realised how bad I had been feeling for the past couple of months.
 
I missed them all, well my then Doctor did, I had twelve plus months of extreme thirst, mouth ulcers, ridiculous boils, tingling toes and fingers, blurred vision ( so severe at one point they upped my prescription by two points). I lost three stone, had recurrent thrush, ear problems and an extreme craving for ice and sugary fizzy drinks and was suffering from nocturnal foot and leg cramps. I asked about diabetes because my Dad died from complications of type two just before my symptoms started. I was told I didn't fit the profile. They did tests and I had a severe b12 deficiency and anaemia and the combo of the two does cause many of the symptoms. However once that was corrected I still had the thirst, the total lack of energy and as others have mentioned a craving for milk and also fizzy water (nothing else would do it for me). In late January this year there was a sudden loss of all energy, really terrible ulcers and nausea and what I thought was fainting. Went up to bed with some chocolate milk woke up in HDU three days later having managed to survive a glucose level of 61. I was quite the celebrity since they'd never seen anyone survive such high levels. Looking back I think my symptoms started about six months before but the b12 issue obscured it all. I didn't even notice the extra weight I'd lost in December I think I'd forgotten what it was to feel like normal.
 
Jesus! You should sue! Poor you kcat, you've been really ill! I hope you're on the mend. 🙂:D
 
Getting there 🙂. My glucose levels are now between 4.5 and 6.5 except in the morning when they like to cruise at a slightly higher level, I can walk now which is nice and only having a few bad days a week now. I considered a complaint to the trust but didn't have the energy, feeling the anger now though so might just do it. Admittedly I was pushing them about type two because of the familial link and I have to confess I had no idea type 1 could arrive in adulthood, but would it have killed them to test blood sugar! Weirdly the thing bothering me the most is some nerve damage in my hand caused by an arterial line I apparently pulled out several times, it's my right hand and it makes everything much harder. I'm one big bruise from injecting with my left hand which is comical 🙄

The important thing is, I'm still here!
 
Sounds like you've got a great sense of humour that'll help keep you thinking positive.😛 You're seriously injecting with your left hand! 🙂 You should be this month's forum heroine.:D
 
KookyCat said:
Getting there 🙂. My glucose levels are now between 4.5 and 6.5 except in the morning when they like to cruise at a slightly higher level, I can walk now which is nice and only having a few bad days a week now. I considered a complaint to the trust but didn't have the energy, feeling the anger now though so might just do it. Admittedly I was pushing them about type two because of the familial link and I have to confess I had no idea type 1 could arrive in adulthood, but would it have killed them to test blood sugar! Weirdly the thing bothering me the most is some nerve damage in my hand caused by an arterial line I apparently pulled out several times, it's my right hand and it makes everything much harder. I'm one big bruise from injecting with my left hand which is comical 🙄

The important thing is, I'm still here!
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Bruise is probably less to do with using your non-dominant hand than just one of those things. Every few months, I get a massive colourful bruise, about 3 cm diameter, in either tummy or thigh. It's juts when needle breaks a capillary wall.

Not so good that you managed to pull out arterial line more than once. Don't nurses know how to bandage properly these days?!? Make me sound like something out of "The Crimson Field" (WWI), even though IVs weren't used then.
 
Yes left handed injections are fun, the left handed writing is less of a success though 🙂

I do have form on the yanking of arterial lines/drips without conscious knowledge of course, but not sure why they didn't cover them. They stitched it in twice and apparently went through the nerve on one of the attempts. It's not numb anymore in fact it's rather sore and I'm assured this is good. I have however, worked out a way to apply nailpolish with Timmy hand so the important things are covered 😉
 
What's a Timmy hand?!:confused:🙂
 
It's the left hand, I know this cos I'm a southpaw myself. 😉
 
I don't know, my Mum's a lefty and that's what she's always called it, I'll have to ask her🙂

I call my right hand Tommy, but just because Timmy and Tommy go nicely together, I'm not clinically insane yet, it comes from not a total inability on my part to tell left from right as a child so Timmy and Tommy it was :confused:
 
There's lots of little lefties at work (I'm a teacher), so I'll have to teach them Timmy and Tommy. They love things like that!:D
 
Interesting thread... I was diagnosed in May 2010. I had been weeing a lot, felt tired and constantly thirsty. I thought it was probably stress related as I was busy organising my wedding and house move. I asked my GP to test me for diabetes really to put my mind at ease I didnt expect the result to come back positive. I got the diagnosis the day after my wedding day! I was diagnosed type 2 but and then more recently it was suggested I have LADA .. Im still trying to get this confirmed!
 
what symptoms?, even the doc was bamboozled at first
Dx`d in 95 after throwing up around half 2 in the morning after having a meal out and 2 drinks at the most
final straw was going on hols with caravan and broke our journey at a site near Newark with pub across the road in old railway station (Carlton on trent ??)
woke up at 2am and dashed to the bog. had some difficulty deciding which end to put over the porcelain for an hour or so.
Then spent the rest of the night in the car passenger seat cranked back at 45 deg and left hand on the door which I dare not fully close
could not lay flat or sit up else it was `huughy` on an MT stomach
at the time we blamed the pub grub, wrongly as it turned out
rest of hols went ok.
swmbo demanded I see a doc when we got home. I said naaah, its ok now
So it happened again over the next month or so
With arm twisted up my back "we" went to see the doc
after weeks of various tests and hospital visits we got a phone call on xmas eve asking if "we" could see him at 5pm 😱😱😱
Phew! it was ONLY Diabetes
swmbo was not amused as Quote " I`ve got a fridge and freezer full of stuff for xmas and new year"
It was the strangest presentation of D he had seen
I had not noticed any/much change in drink/pee regime
I was working shifts at the time, think I was on permanent nights at the time (4.5 yrs of it) and cycling anything from 200 to 600kms on events on a weekend as well as a couple of hrs every other day during the week and using Hi5 energy drinks all the time
So the last thing on my mind, and the doc, was D
as with most things that go wrong with this heap of lard, investigating one thing usually turns up summat else of a more serious nature
they blamed my getting up to pee 2 or 3 + times during the night (off perm nights by now) on the D
Cutting an even longer story short it turned out to be prostate cancer and the knife
Alls well that ends sort of well as they say...whoever they are :D:
 
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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
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