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I've joined the club!

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A

AtomicSpud

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Recently joined the club and thought I'd say hello.

I'm still waiting for confirmation on type, but I (and most of the DSN's I've spoken too) think it's almost certainly type 2.

My hbA1c at diagnosis was 49 so only just over the threshold, but I had quite a few symptoms in the couple of weeks prior to seeing the GP. Excessive thirst (and what goes in must come out!), foggy brain and a level of tiredness I have never experienced before, I was literally falling asleep at my desk in the afternoons. Not sure about weight loss as I had stopped weighing myself regularly but I may have lost a few pounds too.

Helpfully this all happened at the same time as I was due to go for a total thyroidectomy (diagnosed with Graves in 2018) so I dutifully went to the GP to make sure I was fit for surgery. He did all the usual checks - Sugar in urine, high blood glucose from finger check and declares, "I think you might have type 1 diabetes, so I'm sending you to the hospital". Up until this point, I had assumed it was all related to my thyroid issues, so it came as a bit of a shock, particularly considering I was significantly overweight. Now I'm no stranger to diabetes, (my son was diagnosed type 1 at age 3 (he's now 18), my brother was diagnosed type 1 at 38, and my Mother was Diagnosed type 2 in her mid 40's following a DVT in her arm), but the thought hadn't even occurred to me.

So along to the hospital I went, and as you might expect everyone assumed type 2, they took some bloods and left me sitting all day. It was however an opportunity to catch up on some much needed sleep. Fortunately, just as I was about to consider eating a fellow patient (why oh why did I not take food with me!) the diabetic nurse came and explained everything to me. So to cut a long story short, I was presenting as a typical type 2 - but family history and existing autoimmune disease indicated a possibility of type 1 (I would guess LADA now as my BS are not crazy high) and they had taken blood for a GAD test. Then the strangest thing happened - bear in mind various people throughout the day had check my blood sugars and they we're constantly above 11 (can't remember exactly), the nurse checked and my level was ... wait for it ... 4.5! Now, she looked very confused, as did I. At that point, we had gone from talking about insulin to ramping up metformin as quickly as possible to "Have you even got diabetes?".

Needless to say, it has been one hell of a rollercoaster ride for the last two weeks. GP confirmed I was diabetic on 28th June and Thyroid completely removed on 1st July as planned. Still waiting on GAD result.

Now, where I'm a bit confused is, since I spent the day at the hospital, my blood sugars have rarely gone outside the normal range (obviously this is a good thing), so I'm left wondering if something else is going on that could have caused the raised hbA1c.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, it's quite a bit longer than I intended for a first post - it's quite therapeutic just writing it all down.
 
Wow, that's some journey! Welcome to the forum! Wish I could write something helpful but I haven't a clue but some other people will be on here soon. Wishing you well.
 
Welcome to the forum @AtomicSpud

Thanks for sharing your story! Wow. Quite a lot you’ve had going on recently.

Sounds like you are a fair way ahead in terms of diabetes knowledge, but that as ever the fickle Diabetes Fairy is throwing confusion into the mix!

We have a few ‘classic’ PWD of different types on the forum, but also several who distinctly blur the lines, or defy convention altogether! Particularly where things have changed over time - our ex Admin @Northerner was pretty classic T1 to begin with, but hasn’t needed any basal insulin for several years now.

Hope the GAD results shed some light on what is going on for you. Do you know if they also measured for cPeptide at the same time, to see how much home-grown insulin production you have got going on?
 
Welcome to the forum @AtomicSpud

You have certainly had a bit of a roller coaster.
I hope that the antibody test sheds some light on things.
We are certainly all individuals and Diabetes just does not behave at times.

Let us know the outcome.
 
Hi and welcome from me too.

I wonder if your long day at the hospital without food enabled your struggling pancreas to rally it's beta cells to produce a squirt of insulin to lower your levels towards the end of the day and perhaps your liver was starting to run low on reserves to keep topping your glucose levels up or a combination of both, causing your levels to drop before your final test. It is quite common for the pancreas to produce home grown insulin in fits and starts in the early stages of diagnosis and this is referred to as the honeymoon period but it is usually aided by the start of insulin therapy which takes some of the strain off the pancreas and allows it to catch up a bit. I would guess that your long day without food had a similar effect.

Good luck getting an appropriate diagnosis and treatment and let us know how you are getting on.
As others have said, diabetes is highly individual and you will learn to become the expert in your body's particular variation of it.
 
Thanks all for the welcome.

@everydayupsanddowns Not sure if a cPeptide test was done or not, I did ask the GP when I spoke to him, but he thought it was unlikely to have been done at this stage. They did take quite a lot of blood though on three separate occasions.

@Northerner thanks for the suggestion, I’ll ask about that. I think it may have been checked pre and post thyroidectomy (along with calcium etc) but I don’t have access to those test results.

@rebrascora I was thinking along similar lines that the rest and lack of food allowed my body to catch up a bit.

I’m working on the basis that it is type 2 unless told otherwise, which assuming it is should give me a good shot at getting into remission as quickly as possible.

I’ve started reducing my carb intake and have switched most white carbs to green and brown - I know it’s not much better but the extra fibre and slightly less carbs seems like a good starting point. Plus I need to lose weight regardless of the eventual diagnosis.
 
AtomicSpud said:
Recently joined the club and thought I'd say hello.

I'm still waiting for confirmation on type, but I (and most of the DSN's I've spoken too) think it's almost certainly type 2.

My hbA1c at diagnosis was 49 so only just over the threshold, but I had quite a few symptoms in the couple of weeks prior to seeing the GP. Excessive thirst (and what goes in must come out!), foggy brain and a level of tiredness I have never experienced before, I was literally falling asleep at my desk in the afternoons. Not sure about weight loss as I had stopped weighing myself regularly but I may have lost a few pounds too.

Helpfully this all happened at the same time as I was due to go for a total thyroidectomy (diagnosed with Graves in 2018) so I dutifully went to the GP to make sure I was fit for surgery. He did all the usual checks - Sugar in urine, high blood glucose from finger check and declares, "I think you might have type 1 diabetes, so I'm sending you to the hospital". Up until this point, I had assumed it was all related to my thyroid issues, so it came as a bit of a shock, particularly considering I was significantly overweight. Now I'm no stranger to diabetes, (my son was diagnosed type 1 at age 3 (he's now 18), my brother was diagnosed type 1 at 38, and my Mother was Diagnosed type 2 in her mid 40's following a DVT in her arm), but the thought hadn't even occurred to me.

So along to the hospital I went, and as you might expect everyone assumed type 2, they took some bloods and left me sitting all day. It was however an opportunity to catch up on some much needed sleep. Fortunately, just as I was about to consider eating a fellow patient (why oh why did I not take food with me!) the diabetic nurse came and explained everything to me. So to cut a long story short, I was presenting as a typical type 2 - but family history and existing autoimmune disease indicated a possibility of type 1 (I would guess LADA now as my BS are not crazy high) and they had taken blood for a GAD test. Then the strangest thing happened - bear in mind various people throughout the day had check my blood sugars and they we're constantly above 11 (can't remember exactly), the nurse checked and my level was ... wait for it ... 4.5! Now, she looked very confused, as did I. At that point, we had gone from talking about insulin to ramping up metformin as quickly as possible to "Have you even got diabetes?".

Needless to say, it has been one hell of a rollercoaster ride for the last two weeks. GP confirmed I was diabetic on 28th June and Thyroid completely removed on 1st July as planned. Still waiting on GAD result.

Now, where I'm a bit confused is, since I spent the day at the hospital, my blood sugars have rarely gone outside the normal range (obviously this is a good thing), so I'm left wondering if something else is going on that could have caused the raised hbA1c.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, it's quite a bit longer than I intended for a first post - it's quite therapeutic just writing it all down.
Click to expand...
Sharing is what it's about, so don't stress. I'm new as well. Not seeing a nurse until next Friday and am veering from feeling I'm taking 1 step forward and then three back. Knowing others are feeling the same is v comforting.
 
I agree with @rebrascora sound like you natural insulin production finally kicked in hard and possibly over compensated.
The problem for some T2's is that the faster and higher their BG climbs, then the faster and deeper it eventually falls. It's a rollercoaster because they get ravenously hungry from the drop in BG and the drop is an inevitable result of too many carbs causing the BG to go too high in the first place.

Cut back on the carbs (especially fruit and grains) then everything calms down to more manageable levels.
 
Hi @CME, I agree, the support available in this forum is incredible and being able to share knowledge and ideas is great. Good luck on Friday, and don't be hard on yourself if you make mistakes, it's a journey and there will be bumps in the road.

Thanks @ianf0ster that makes a lot of sense. I couldn't understand the readings I had been getting vs the way I've been feeling - particularly after meals with carbs in, obviously timing is everything and think I've probably missed the high points. BS was 6.8 before having a roast dinner last night, and I probably had more carbs than I intended (2 big roast potatoes and a small Yorkshire pudding), felt like I was high but when I checked 2 hours later, BS had come down to 5.0. I started off really well eating around 100g of Carbs for the first few days, but some of the foods have surprised me with how many carbs they contain. I've got the blood sugar diet book and accompanying recipe book to use for ideas to start with and will try the 8 week diet once recovered from surgery.
 
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