Age at diagnosis of type 1 diabetes only please

[trophywench]

@Ally beetle - ROFLMAO

 

[Ally beetle]

October 2001, aged 29, my own diabetes odyssey began. Dark and stormy days had beset both my body and spirit, spiralling to a low point following the death of my best friend. I recall a brief sectioning that year.
Turned out that my suspicions were correct, God really was trying to kill me. I had a horrible thrombosis in my leg which dragged on for a month.
I lost weight, suffered thirst, bg was in the 30's. I was sent directly to hospital to start insulin. Mixtard 70/30, glucose settled over the next 6 weeks. I had a lovely diabetes honeymoon for the next 8 or 10 months with low insulin requirements. During which time I had a hypo after a night out drinking, i fell down the stairs and fractured my jaw on the pommel on the end of the bannister, (i could have broken my neck.) No more happy drinking.
Honey moon ended went onto novorapid and lantus.


The age of people who like forums and the age they developed diabetes, hmm.

blimey, you had an awful time over that period of time. I am amazed you are still alive lol!!! thanks for sharing such a personal experience. I have given up drinking for the most part as it just scares me so much the thought of waking up in a hospital after a coma or worse not waking up at all !!

You have a point about the last comment about the age of people who use this forum

 

[Cookiemonster2017]

exactly 2 weeks after my 17th birthday when I went into DKA although I had been sick from November to February (lost 12kg, 1 of which overnight, fatigue, irritability, constant thirst and urination)
admitted into hospital with a blood glucose of 27, and ketones of 15
Doctors couldn't believe I didn't know, no family history, otherwise a very healthy and active teenager
very supportive nurses
8 months later still on insulin injection needles

 

[Ally beetle]

exactly 2 weeks after my 17th birthday when I went into DKA although I had been sick from November to February (lost 12kg, 1 of which overnight, fatigue, irritability, constant thirst and urination)
admitted into hospital with a blood glucose of 27, and ketones of 15
Doctors couldn't believe I didn't know, no family history, otherwise a very healthy and active teenager
very supportive nurses
8 months later still on insulin injection needles

I think it maybe getting better with people realising now as it is in the media much more but saying that the information is very misleading

 

[trophywench]

I don't believe we only have 40 Type 1 members on here!

Just thinking - we must make a lot of 'noise' between us, considering, mustn't we?

 

[Ally beetle]

I never had a BM one - but hospitals still routinely test everyone's BM whether diabetic or not and 99.99999999r% of the folk employed in the NHS haven't a clue it stands for Boehringer Mannheim !!

My first was a Roche and cost me a month's salary, Roche had made VAST advances and it was teeny - approx. 7" long by 4" wide by 1" high - pale grey. Prior to that, of course, I was boiling up my wee in a Clinitest test tube kit.

Roche took over Boehringer Mannheim did they not? and the name has disappeared into the ether of history

 

[Lisa66]

I still sometimes say BM sticks when referring to my test strips! 🙂

 

[Mucker86]

September 2017 the same day I came back from my best mates 30th in Prague. All the classics signs (thirsty, peeing lots, legs and knees aching, headaches and blurry vision) Had to persuade my dad to drive me to the hospital. Walked into A & E to tell them I have diabetes. Got my blood glucose and ketones tested. Blood sugar was 38.8 and ketones was 2.8 I remember the nurse telling me she couldn’t believe I was still standing.

Quickly adjusted over the last 4.5 weeks and a big help from my Mum who has also been type 1 for 20 years. Ironically my mum was the same age and also a month shy of turning 31 when she was diagnosed. Go figure!

 

[Ally beetle]

September 2017 the same day I came back from my best mates 30th in Prague. All the classics signs (thirsty, peeing lots, legs and knees aching, headaches and blurry vision) Had to persuade my dad to drive me to the hospital. Walked into A & E to tell them I have diabetes. Got my blood glucose and ketones tested. Blood sugar was 38.8 and ketones was 2.8 I remember the nurse telling me she couldn’t believe I was still standing.

Quickly adjusted over the last 4.5 weeks and a big help from my Mum who has also been type 1 for 20 years. Ironically my mum was the same age and also a month shy of turning 31 when she was diagnosed. Go figure!

I think I was diagnosed in September time and I was 31 in 2010

 

[Ally beetle]

please encourage everyone you know on here to take part in the poll in either the type one poll, the type 2 poll or the other types poll

 

[Ally beetle]

Really interesting split in ages of diagnosis on here

 

[Matt Cycle]

Really interesting split in ages of diagnosis on here

I think it shows what I said in my earlier post that the forum demographic is not representative of T1 as a whole in regards to age of diagnosis. Assuming of course everyone's diagnosis is correct. 🙄

 

[Ally beetle]

I think it shows what I said in my earlier post that the forum demographic is not representative of T1 as a whole in regards to age of diagnosis. Assuming of course everyone's diagnosis is correct. 🙄

But whatever demographic it doesn't matter how young/old the people are, its the age of diagnosis that I am asking

 

[TheClockworkDodo]

I was 44 when I was diagnosed - I went to the optician because my sight had gone blurry, and she said she thought I might have diabetes. I thought this was most unlikely because I didn't realise adults could get type 1 and I didn't realise that slim people on healthy diets could get type 2 - but I made a non-urgent appointment to see the doctor a couple of weeks later, just in case. I didn't last that long - we had to call out the doctor to see me at home before then because I was feeling so ill and I'd lost so much weight (about a stone in a fortnight - I was seven and a half stone and rapidly dropping into underweight territory). She got me to do a urine test, though she didn't think it was diabetes either - and then she rang a few minutes later to tell me to go straight to hospital as I had DKA. My reading then was 20 - can't remember exact HbA1c, but it was over 100.

I have no family history of diabetes or any other auto-immune disease. But I have a ridiculously over-active immune system as a result of having ME, which causes dysautonomia (ie all the things the body's supposed to do automatically, like immune system, digestion, respiratory system, senses, and so on, randomly don't work properly). My GAD antibody test was so far off the scale it was an unmeasurable greater than 2000! So my diabetes is a secondary condition resulting from my ME - and they now think that ME itself might be an auto-immune disease.

The optician probably saved my life, because ME has so many different symptoms (including incessant thirst and peeing a lot, as well as feeling ill and exhausted after any exertion, which is usually inaccurately described by doctors as "fatigue") that normally whenever I get any new symptoms everyone - including GPs - tend to assume they're "just the ME" - this is why the doctor I called out didn't think that what was wrong with me was going to be diabetes. So if I'd just called her out without being able to say that I'd seen an optician who thought I might be diabetic, it probably wouldn't have occured to her to get me to do a urine test, and she wouldn't have found the ketones.

 

[Ally beetle]

What an awesome story ME is an awful condition and it is still not excepted by some people well thank you so much for your contribution

I was 44 when I was diagnosed - I went to the optician because my sight had gone blurry, and she said she thought I might have diabetes. I thought this was most unlikely because I didn't realise adults could get type 1 and I didn't realise that slim people on healthy diets could get type 2 - but I made a non-urgent appointment to see the doctor a couple of weeks later, just in case. I didn't last that long - we had to call out the doctor to see me at home before then because I was feeling so ill and I'd lost so much weight (about a stone in a fortnight - I was seven and a half stone and rapidly dropping into underweight territory). She got me to do a urine test, though she didn't think it was diabetes either - and then she rang a few minutes later to tell me to go straight to hospital as I had DKA. My reading then was 20 - can't remember exact HbA1c, but it was over 100.

I have no family history of diabetes or any other auto-immune disease. But I have a ridiculously over-active immune system as a result of having ME, which causes dysautonomia (ie all the things the body's supposed to do automatically, like immune system, digestion, respiratory system, senses, and so on, randomly don't work properly). My GAD antibody test was so far off the scale it was an unmeasurable greater than 2000! So my diabetes is a secondary condition resulting from my ME - and they now think that ME itself might be an auto-immune disease.

The optician probably saved my life, because ME has so many different symptoms (including incessant thirst and peeing a lot, as well as feeling ill and exhausted after any exertion, which is usually inaccurately described by doctors as "fatigue") that normally whenever I get any new symptoms everyone - including GPs - tend to assume they're "just the ME" - this is why the doctor I called out didn't think that what was wrong with me was going to be diabetes. So if I'd just called her out without being able to say that I'd seen an optician who thought I might be diabetic, it probably wouldn't have occured to her to get me to do a urine test, and she wouldn't have found the ketones.

 

[Matt Cycle]

But whatever demographic it doesn't matter how young/old the people are, its the age of diagnosis that I am asking

I realise that but studies on far wider populations have shown the average age of diagnosis in Type 1 is, if I remember correctly, around 14. What the forum stats above show is the average age of diagnosis of T1 for those on the forum and who have voted is a lot higher than that you would normally expect from a T1 diabetic group.

 

[Ally beetle]

I realise that but studies on far wider populations have shown the average age of diagnosis in Type 1 is, if I remember correctly, around 14. What the forum stats above show is the average age of diagnosis of T1 for those on the forum and who have voted is a lot higher than that you would normally expect from a T1 diabetic group.

Oh i know you are right and very few people have taken the survey so l do think it is a skewed result but still shows it is not as many members were young when they developed diabetes. Larger surveys would be more accurate but need allot of time and effort to get that kind survey as well as difficult to get authorisation from health groups to acquire that information and I am not important enough lol!!

 

[Robin]

I think the dip in the 30-39 age group is interesting. Is there a lull in diagnoses between those ages, or do people diagnosed around that age not feel the need to use a forum, or is it just a normal statistical variation?

 

[Barbie1]

3rd July 1967, when I was 11. I had been feeling very unwell during the school year-end exams and the local GP had prescribed me a sugar full tonic. A week later I weighed 3st 3 and mum called him round as I couldn't get out of bed. He did a urine test and immediately phoned for an ambulance. (I do remember that trip because it was the rush hour in Birmingham and we couldn't rush very much!)
No history of diabetes in the family.
I did learn to carb count, because that is what we had to do to cope with the Lente insulin once a day. Over the years I spent many a few days in hospital after drinking too much at college and having severe hypos and probably dka, though I didn't really know what that was, nor know or care about long term effects (when diagnosed I was told I'd probably not live beyond 50 or so). I was useless at looking after myself until aged about 40, when a different GP noticed signs of damage in my eyes. Still not brilliant but just got my gold medal. And no further deterioration in my eyes

 

[Ally beetle]

I think the dip in the 30-39 age group is interesting. Is there a lull in diagnoses between those ages, or do people diagnosed around that age not feel the need to use a forum, or is it just a normal statistical variation?

lol that is the group I am in and I am the one who started the poll/survey all I know is that when I got diagnosed I was one of two people that day about the same age well a year older which was so weird.