What was you BG at diagnosis?

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Lily123

Lily123

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As said in the title I’m wondering what everyones BG levels were at diagnosis. I am also wondering if it was unusual for my BG to be 16.1 at diagnosis and to not be near going into DKA?
 
35 was in dka.
 
Approaching 30. Doctor called an ambulance as I had ketones and was at high risk of DKA.

No, I don’t think your experience is that unusual. After I was admitted to hospital, my blood sugar came down a bit on its own. It depends when you’re diagnosed. The beta cells will struggle on for ages sometimes and blood sugar can be erratic. For all you know, your blood sugar could have been in the 20s earlier that day.
 
That must have been scary.
 
Lily123 said:
As said in the title I’m wondering what everyones BG levels were at diagnosis. I am also wondering if it was unusual for my BG to be 16.1 at diagnosis and to not be near going into DKA?
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This might be a bit confusing as most people have their HbA1C in mmol/mol which would be a number above 48mmol/mol. Is what you are quoting from a fingerprick in mmol/l or an HbA1C in % which is the old units.
 
Oh sorry should have been clearer. 16.1 was BG reading my first HbA1c was 61 if I remember correctly
 
Fingerpricks are usually used to diagnose Type 1, I think, @Leadinglights Someone feels really ill, sees a doctor, has a fingerprick test and often ketone test too.

The reason is the risk of DKA. Nobody would wait for an HbA1C to come back.
 
Pat91 said:
Yeah I knew things were serious when I was put into ITU in hospital.
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Scary but your here to tell the tale so you survived
 
My daughter’s was 46 and she was just starting to go into DKA, consultant said she’d probably have been unconscious within 24 hours if we hadn’t got her to hospital when we did. Don’t know what ketones were (high obviously, but I don’t know the number), also don’t know what hbA1c was but a week or two or maybe a month later it was 112!

@Lily123 you must have been very lucky that someone knew the signs and spotted it quickly. We were at the doctors a week before and I told him that I thought she had symptoms of diabetes, he did a urine test which was apparently normal and didn’t think there was anything wrong with her. Luckily he did think to do blood tests, he treated it like type 2 though and sent us off for a fasting blood test, unfortunately at the time I didn’t know enough about it to argue. If only he’d done a finger prick test at that first meeting our experience might have been more like yours!
 
My blood test was 13+ % - so that's 120 ish in modern UK speak. No fingerprick testing then, all armful of blood lab testing*, so no idea whether it was just BG or was HbA1c.

* fresh armful taken am and pm for the full 10 days I was an in-patient. Ohhh the bruises .....
 
Sally71 said:
My daughter’s was 46 and she was just starting to go into DKA, consultant said she’d probably have been unconscious within 24 hours if we hadn’t got her to hospital when we did. Don’t know what ketones were (high obviously, but I don’t know the number), also don’t know what hbA1c was but a week or two or maybe a month later it was 112!

@Lily123 you must have been very lucky that someone knew the signs and spotted it quickly. We were at the doctors a week before and I told him that I thought she had symptoms of diabetes, he did a urine test which was apparently normal and didn’t think there was anything wrong with her. Luckily he did think to do blood tests, he treated it like type 2 though and sent us off for a fasting blood test, unfortunately at the time I didn’t know enough about it to argue. If only he’d done a finger prick test at that first meeting our experience might have been more like yours!
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Yikes that’s scary @Sally71! With me (I’m in secondary achool) My parents didn’t know the symptome but they started appearing at the end of year 2 and was diagnosed a few weeks into year 3.
 
trophywench said:
My blood test was 13+ % - so that's 120 ish in modern UK speak. No fingerprick testing then, all armful of blood lab testing*, so no idea whether it was just BG or was HbA1c.

* fresh armful taken am and pm for the full 10 days I was an in-patient. Ohhh the bruises .....
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That must have hurt
 
Mine was 14% or 19.7mmol or 130 Hba1c 21 years ago & put on blood sugar lowering tablets straight away. Not in DKA, I don’t think but, diagnosed as type 2, had lost 0.5 stone in 6 months when I kept getting ill with a cold every few weeks, completely lost my appetite & living on drinking lucozade, full sugar AND glucose in the days long before the sugar tax, for energy of which I didn’t have much of as I slept a LOT: the diagnosis was a relief actually as I KNEW something wasn’t right getting ill all the time; took another 6 months though to put the weight back on & my Hba1c to get down to 7% 8.7mmol or 53 Hba1c.
 
Finger prick was 26.3 (I think). No symptoms, felt fine. Hba1c was 127.
 
I think mine was about 19 at diagnosis. My symptoms hit me suddenly a fortnight before that and after a couple of days of drinking gallons of water and weeing for England I realised what the problem was and started cutting back on my sugar intake quite dramatically, hoping to reverse it as I assumed Type 2. By the time I had a blood test 2 weeks later my symptoms had lessened and I had probably reduced my carb intake by more than 50%, so I am guessing my levels were probably considerably higher when my symptoms first started.
I consider myself very lucky that I avoided a DKA or hospital admission.
 
My HbA1c was 16.1, which converts to 152.5. A venous fasting blood sample spot check was 16.2..
My GP still assumed I was Type 2. I never had ketones tested. I was offered Gliclazide and a nice healthy starchy carb diet! I managed to stay on my feet by reading up and adopting a low carb diet, and I managed to stop the 2lb a week weight loss, but I didn't know any better, so it never crossed my mind I might be Type 1. Luckily my GP thought I might be a 'weird Type 2' as she put it, and referred me to the hospital, and I had an appointment about 6 weeks later. That was in April. They also assumed Type 2 (goodness knows why) and added in Metformin, and it was only decided at the next appointment in July to add in Lantus as a basal. HbA1c had by that time fallen to 12.1.
Then in September (HbA1c 11.0 by now) a more on the ball doctor did a GAD antibody test, but I only got the positive result of it when I had a further appointment the following January. (In those days, you couldn’t see your results on line, else I’d have made a fuss). I was then taken off Met and Glic, and put on a basal bolus regime.
The nurse doing explaining the insulin to me did look at my notes and exclaim 'Goodness, I don’t know how you were still walking around all that time!'
 
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