type 1 or 2

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jj10125

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Hello everyone!

Firstly, really happy to have found this forum and website in general. I have read through some of the forum posts and it is great to see such a supportive community.

I am just looking for some advice, I have a strong history of needle phobia due to previous trauma which is something I have overcome with therapy and have since been able to have blood work confirming that I am diabetic.

My health issues are really historic with issues with my feet being the final nail in the coffin to conquer my phobia leading the diabetic team to class me as a 'complicated case' basically, they suspect I am type 1 but have started treating me as type 2 with gliclazide and metformin pending the results of more blood work to confirm if it is type one or not.

Since going on to the medication my blood levels have gradually overtime improved drastically, it's rare not to have a green day and I have a mild hypo every other day minimal.

I am just wondering completely curiosity wise, would the medication work at all for type 1? From what I've heard and read it seems to suggest only insulin would do the job. But I am very new to this - the diabetic team did express concerns that I could be a 'slow burner' for type one certainly given drastic weight loss when I was younger but I don't think they also see how I could have gone this long without ending up in hospital.

Thanks!
 
jj10125 said:
I am just wondering completely curiosity wise, would the medication work at all for type 1? From what I've heard and read it seems to suggest only insulin would do the job. But I am very new to this - the diabetic team did express concerns that I could be a 'slow burner' for type one certainly given drastic weight loss when I was younger but I don't think they also see how I could have gone this long without ending up in hospital.
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Type 1 is an autoimmune condition which eventually means insulin is required, but it can take a while. As I understand it that's more often the case for older people (when it appears in children it usually happens rapidly) but I doubt it's impossible for someone younger.
 
jj10125 said:
Hello everyone!

Firstly, really happy to have found this forum and website in general. I have read through some of the forum posts and it is great to see such a supportive community.

I am just looking for some advice, I have a strong history of needle phobia due to previous trauma which is something I have overcome with therapy and have since been able to have blood work confirming that I am diabetic.

My health issues are really historic with issues with my feet being the final nail in the coffin to conquer my phobia leading the diabetic team to class me as a 'complicated case' basically, they suspect I am type 1 but have started treating me as type 2 with gliclazide and metformin pending the results of more blood work to confirm if it is type one or not.

Since going on to the medication my blood levels have gradually overtime improved drastically, it's rare not to have a green day and I have a mild hypo every other day minimal.

I am just wondering completely curiosity wise, would the medication work at all for type 1? From what I've heard and read it seems to suggest only insulin would do the job. But I am very new to this - the diabetic team did express concerns that I could be a 'slow burner' for type one certainly given drastic weight loss when I was younger but I don't think they also see how I could have gone this long without ending up in hospital.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Timescales for becoming LADA (Late onset T1) can vary a lot. In my case it took around 8 years at age 50! I was always slim, all the T2 tablets eventually stopped working and after a refusal my GP offered me insulin which was a game changer. C-Peptide tests showed I was just above the T1 limit but nevertheless had low insulin output. I'm now under the care of the DB clinic endo as well as a great DN. The endo is interested as I'm an 'unusual' case. Note that viruses can cause beta cell death as well as auto-immunity and I think a virus was the cause in my case. Note that during the period of death of the beta cells meds such as Gliclazide can help for a while as they did for me but can cause beta cell burn-out so early insulin is recommended.
 
Have you changed your diet at all or are you just relying on the oral meds?
The reason I ask is that if you have reduced your carb intake, that will have relieved the strain on your remaining beta cells and allowed them to catch up with the backlog and cope better, at least for the time being, because they are not needing to produce so much insulin to cover food. Lowering your carb intake has a far more dramatic impact on BG levels than pretty much all oral diabetes meds. Insulin is probably the only thing which has a bigger impact, so some modification to your diet is likely responsible for your levels dropping, even if it has only been cutting out sugar so far.

Would just like to reassure you that the insulin needles are teeny tiny.... about the width of a human hair and quarter of an inch long and you can get covered needles or other aids to help if you have difficulty overcoming your phobia. I inject my morning insulin into my buttocks every morning so I obviously can't even look to see the needle go in, just dial up the dose, roll over and jab it in.
 
rebrascora said:
Have you changed your diet at all or are you just relying on the oral meds?
The reason I ask is that if you have reduced your carb intake, that will have relieved the strain on your remaining beta cells and allowed them to catch up with the backlog and cope better, at least for the time being, because they are not needing to produce so much insulin to cover food. Lowering your carb intake has a far more dramatic impact on BG levels than pretty much all oral diabetes meds. Insulin is probably the only thing which has a bigger impact, so some modification to your diet is likely responsible for your levels dropping, even if it has only been cutting out sugar so far.

Would just like to reassure you that the insulin needles are teeny tiny.... about the width of a human hair and quarter of an inch long and you can get covered needles or other aids to help if you have difficulty overcoming your phobia. I inject my morning insulin into my buttocks every morning so I obviously can't even look to see the needle go in, just dial up the dose, roll over and jab it in.
Click to expand...
Thank you Rebrascora for your reply.

You're spot on, I have drastically reduced carb in take I don't think the diabetic clinic really knew/know at this stage to recommend doing that or not because I am not overweight and my diet is not overly bad. I've been suspected diabetic for ages, so I had already cut out sugar mostly.

I guess my tests (apparently takes 3-4 weeks) will give the real picture but just thought I would ask out of curiosity. I couldn't work out if having T1 made it impossible to keep BG down without insulin or not. Looks like perhaps not completely!
 
Welcome to the forum @jj10125

You are the second new member I’ve replied to today who has had this experience, which I suggested was quite unusual earlier!

I guess it might depend on how slowly your beta cells were being destroyed, and how much beta cell mass you still had remaining?
 
The basic state of affairs is that in order to get any nutrition from food into any cell in your body, there always (24hrs of every single day of your life) has to be enough insulin circulating in the bloodstream to enable the cells to absorb that nutrition. It doesn't actually matter where that insulin comes from - your own body or what's been injected from outside. If there's not enough of it, then some of the cells start dying - hence the 'diabetic complications' eg neuropathy or kidney damage, but later if not corrected - heart failure and brain death. Once all your insulin producing cells in your pancreas have popped their clogs so you are 100% Type 1 - no choice but to inject enough from outside. If you don't bother for whatever reason - death is inevitable unless it's caught quick enough to prevent that.

My job is to prevent me going anywhere near there. I think being female is alleged to help since we're all supposed to be able to multi task - but I have to say Type 1 blokes (and all the other varieties of gender under the current sun) all have to do that too - if any of us want to have a 'normal' life on top of impersonating a pancreas. 😉
 
UPDATE

Had a call with the diet person today, she mentioned the antibody was negative and as such likely to be diagnosed with type 2. They did state it was all 'dodgy' based on history so something to monitor moving forward.

But I assume that's a positive

Awaiting a call from the actual consultant to discuss
 
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