Type 1 Diabetes Adult Diagnoses Are More Frequent Than Just About Anyone Realizes

[Northerner]

A new systematic review published in Diabetes Care has concluded that adult-onset type 1 diabetes is far more common than previously believed.

For generations, it was widely assumed that type 1 diabetes was overwhelmingly a disease of the young. The condition even used to be known as “juvenile diabetes,” a name that was eventually tossed aside because it was so impressively inaccurate.

The more data we get, the more we realize how many adults develop the disease, too. In the United States, for example, there are an estimated 37% more new cases of type 1 diabetes in adults than there are in children every year.

Type 1 Diabetes Adult Diagnoses Are More Frequent Than Just About Anyone Realizes

A new study shows that adults develop type 1 diabetes more often than most of us suspect.

www.diabetesdaily.com

I hope someone tells all the HCPs who think you can only get it as a child, and if you are an adult then you must be Type 2 🙄 I've lost count of the number of members we've had here over the years who have suffered greatly after being misdiagnosed and denied appropriate treatment until things became critical

 

[trophywench]

Years ago Mike (@everydayupsanddowns) did a poll - can't remember now if it was on DSF or after he came to work for DUK on here but doesn't really matter which - and ISTR we were all told it appeared to be 30% more as adults. Both @Pattidevans and I firmly already knew that anyway, she was misdiagnosed for years and that was spotted and pointed out as a strong possibility PDQ by Alan Shanley amongst others, years prior to internet forums even being invented!

Lots of things apart from diabetes are still ignored in some postcodes. I have a great grandson, born in Nottingham and properly diagnosed by hospital paediatric specialists as autistic, whose parents moved up to Doncaster for his dad's work - and there you cannot even start to be diagnosed with autism until you are aged 6, even though you've already been diagnosed elsewhere by the NHS. (So we'll all just ignore it shall we and not allow him to attend a school that knows how to deal with it ......) He's 3, non verbal mainly.

Who knows what the help he doesn't get now, will harm him for the rest of his life?

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Years ago Mike (@everydayupsanddowns) did a poll - can't remember now if it was on DSF or after he came to work for DUK on here but doesn't really matter which - and ISTR we were all told it appeared to be 30% more as adults.

Yes it wasn’t really representative for age because of the sample (folks I knew on SoMe, Twitter, Forums etc). I seem to remember the early responses were ALL adult!

What I found interesting was that I asked about age at diagnosis, and folks began to voluntarily share their experience of having been diagnosed, then later re-classified.

Out of 200ish respondents, it seemed that mid-30s was the diagnosis age where your ‘tick’ was most likely to get put in the wrong box 😱

At a separate Diabetes UK research thing a few years back they said current data suggested a 50:50 split for those being diagnosed as T1 in adulthood, with a number of different ‘clusters’ where Dx became more common (6-8…10-12… 20-22…)

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Oh… and if you wanted to check the results of the poll, I wrote them up here:

Unusual suspects : age at diagnosis

Because no two days with type 1 diabetes are the same. Except when they are. The ups and downs of life with T1D.

www.everydayupsanddowns.co.uk

 

[mikeyB]

I'm one of those automatically diagnosed as T2. I went into the docs after using my mum's testing kit to show a BG of 15 or so, and he said, right, we'll start on Metformin, and get you an appointment with the diabetes nurse (who was superb). I kept going back because tablets did nothing. I remember I was taking 15 tablets during the day, eating little, drinking plenty of fluids and still being in double figures. Yes, as a T2 I'd been given a testing kit and prescription for strips.

What saved me was a couple of depressing months afterwards, I started with ulcerative colitis -my second autoimmune disease- which floored me, narrowly avoided a total colectomy, but the main point was that food was just going straight through me without touching the sides. While recovering from that and absorbing food, having lost 10k of weight, I was in a state where eating anything would send my BG into the stratosphere, even after stopping to need steroids for the UC, so a consultant appointment led very quickly to a diagnosis of T1, and after injecting an orange then my thigh I embarked on my career of T1. I felt so much better that I didn't mind the still frequent visits to the toilet.]

It only took three years for the surgery to change T2 to T1 on my computer records.

 

[Bloden]

I’m so thankful my GP in Spain was on the ball - sent me straight to A&E with a letter, and the next day I was a new T1, aged 41. 🙂It was only when I started using this forum that I realised how lucky I’d been to be classed Type 1 from the get-go. That still didn’t stop my current surgery’s nurse practitioner from suggesting I might be Type 2 after all (after I’d already been using insulin for 11 years). Needless to say, I try to stay well away from her!😱😛😎