Mine was caught early, apparently because of being on prednisolone.
I started with symptoms early August, lost a bit of weight even though my diet hadn’t changed, was more tired than usually, always thirsty and going to the toilet a lot. I saw my GP, mentioned the symptoms she did a random blood sugar which came back as 11.??mmol/l – nb I was on pred at the time. Followed up the same week and had another random blood sugar done which was fine (9/8mmol/l I think). GP sent me for a fasting blood sugar which was upper normal.
Started getting worse so went back to my old GP (felt to embarrassed to see above GP because she wanted me to follow up in 6 months). I had another fasting blood sugar + other blood tests. Fasting blood sugar was 6.6mmol/l so got sent for a GTT. Fasting was 9.7mmol/l, 1hr 14.2mmol/l, and 2hr 18.8mmol/l. The GP put me on diabex 500mg, I got taken off that b/c I was told it wouldn’t help me + the DE and endo was concerned about me being on it d/t me weight. The endo started me on diamicron b/c he was worried about me being on insulin d/t risk of hypoglycaemia.
Endo said diamicron would help me pancreas produce more insulin. Still got worse while on that. Ended up in hospital 19/10 bsl got to 22/21mmol/l but came down on their own w/o insulin, just had a lot of iv fluid, in hospital again 20th-24th with high bsl (highest 24.4mmol/l), was being treated as dka even though I was told it was lactic acidosis, started 2 units of lantus 21/10. Had more probs a couple of days later and stayed in hosp 27th – 31st , lantus increased to 3 units in the morning.
I’ve been told I have type 2 diabetes by the GP (because of my age - I'm 23), then slow onset type 1, then early stages of type one that was probably detected early d/t being on prednisolone early September, then type 1 but in the honeymoon stage by the diabetes educator.
I was shocked at first when I had the first random blood sugar. Now I’ve just being going through acceptance and denial. If I have a few good days of normal bsl I kind of go into denial about the diabetes, then if I have a few high days (above 14mmol/l) I think to myself maybe I really do have diabetes. My Mum supports me with the diet part of diabetes, like eating sensibly / not having a lot of sugars/carbs in my diet, both my parents have been sort of helping me injecting lantus (was scared to do it at first – worried about the pain and possibility of my bsl going too low on insulin). My grandparents have been concerned too.
Other thoughts, sometimes I hate that I have diabetes, I’ve always thought of myself as being ‘a healthy young adult and invisible to every health problem out there’ – which I guess isn’t really all that true if I look back since late August / early Sept + last year. There have also been times when I’ve been in denial and just want to ignore the diabetes, do silly things like drink a soft drink, have too much sugar in my coffee, honey which I know makes my bsl shoot up. But I’m getting over that now – I like feeling well!
Anyway, for the most part I’ve had really tight control on lantus (not including these last 3 days) – almost to the point that I’d say I might even have better blood sugar control than a person w/o diabetes. Of course I stop taking lantus and my bsl does go up – but I’m lucky in that it takes 2/3 days for my bsl to go above 20mmol/l!!
