I am thin!

[Midnightcatpatrol]

How old is your husband? Just to clarify, this was weight loss pre diagnosis not pre existing skinniness?

The reason I ask is I agree with those above, there are T1 features here.

Tbh with levels of over 20 you could go to the A&E. I doubt the gp has given you guys a ketones monitor. Hell if your lucky you might even get an endocrine registrar on call for medicine!

 

[leonS]

If you can make your own insulin (at least to some extent) medication given by mouth will usually work. After most of the insulin producing calls have gone nothing will work except insulin.

Maturity onset tends to kill of the insulin cells slowly so medication may work for a while.

It may come as a surprize to learn that glucose kills cells if it enters the cells at high levels. The good news is that it can not enter most cells without insulin. The (very) bad news is that it can enter some cells: nerves, blood vessels and those in the eye. Important ones. It is best to avoid this by keeping BG in range.

 

[helli]

@Beckybird Sorry to read about your husband.
As someone who was diagnosed with type 1 later in life, I would like to say it is not something to be overly alarmed about. Knowing some people can win Oscars and Olympic medals as well as run a country, gives me confidence to get on with my full and active life. The only difference between me and my colleagues and friends is that I have a few more needles in my life.

 

[DaveB]

Gliclazide had absolutely no effect on me whatsoever. Personally I’d rather be type 1 than 2, life is a heck of a lot easier now I’m on insulin, I find it far easier to control my levels, and I feel a lot better too.

Yes, it finally had no effect on me either after it probably damaged my remaining beta cells. My DNs used to ask me whether I had hypos with it and I thought a chance would be a nice thing with BS being in the teens most of the time. It didn't occur to them that T1 was likely.

 

[Madeline]

Lol, I had one of those roundabout going nowhere conversations with the DSN over hypos and Gliclazide.

DSN: So how are you doing?
Me: it’s made no difference.
DSN: How can you know?
Me: I’m testing.
DSN, trotting out the Party Line: You’re Type 2, you shouldn’t be testing, you don’t need to test.
Me: well I’d not know it isn’t working without testing.
DSN: but you don’t need to test.
Me: I’m taking Gliclazide.
DSN: you’re Type 2
Me, in garden centre trying to find convenient wall to bang head on: but it’s not working.
DSN: we’ll give it a bit longer. You need to be careful it doesn’t make you low.
Me: lowest I’ve been this week is 8 (something).
DSN: how do you know?
Me, watching the tumbleweed: I’m testing.
DSN: you don’t nee...
Me, gives up: Ok sorry I have to go now.

I mean, what is the point? At that point it was simply a head nodding exercise in how to deal with exceptionally useless ‘help’.

 

[Becka]

That was similiar-ish to the conversation I had with the practice pharmacist, whom the surgery referred me to when my c-peptide test returned "normal".

I said Gliclazide no longer worked, it made no difference whether I took nothing or 320 mg.
He said my HbA1c was good last year when I was taking Gliclazide, it is bad now that I am not, therefore it is because I stopped taking it.
I said but my readings were higher when I was taking it, because it was not doing anything.
He said levels are just snapshots so cannot be used that way
I asked why would they be consistently high whenever I tested if Gliclazide was working?
He said he is not a mathematician (!) but the HbA1c is the average so that is all that matters.

It continued like that. He was very insistent, I was quite upset, so I just lied and agreed with him to end the call.

Thankfully I had a G.P. appointment lined up too, and she immediately accepted that Gliclazide was obviously ineffective on the basis that it was.

 

[Inka]

@Beckybird How’s your husband now?

 

[Madeline]

@Becka its infuriating isn’t it. And it gets worse as you age, I hit 50 and discovered I’d not only apparently become invisible, I’d also dropped IQ substantially. If you’re going to become an HCP at least have the decency to listen to your patients.

 

[PeteM2020]

My husband has got type 2 but is really skinny he lost over half a stone before being diagnosed. He is finding it really diffircult to eat enough to put on weight. He is eating small amounts of bread and potatoes but trying to avoid them. Any suggestions to what will fatten him up! A lot of the information I read assumes you are fat when you have diabetes. Are rice cakes any good or which bread would be the best to eat?

Becky, has your husband got any further with the doc re diagnosis?

I felt for a few months that something wasn't right with me. Really thirsty all the time, craving salt and sugar, really frequent urination, muscle and fat falling off me. I felt dreadful. During Feb this year I lost 12kg, ending up at 70kg! I bought some urine test strips on line for about a fiver and these showed both my glucose and ketones were off the top of the scale. Went to GP the following morning.
GP was great. Did blood tests there and then which confirmed the urine test strip readings and sent me straight up the hospital. Got diagnosed with Type 1 and I'm 53 years old.
As soon as I started on the insulin everything improved. Muscle came back, weight came back (81kg now which is about where I intend to stay), and feel so much better all in just a few months.
If your husband has symptoms similar to mine then I would recommend having the discussion with GP about possibility of Type 1 diabetes as Type 2 doesn't seem right to me.