Diabetes runs in my family. Almost everyone on my dad’s side of the family has/had it and many of them suffered quite a lot under it. My dad was diagnosed when he was 44 (he’s 75-now and needs insulin shots multiple times a day) and my brother, who is gonna be 40 next year, was diagnosed earlier this year or last year (not sure if he’s insulin dependent or not). I just turned 41 this September and have been riding the “high glucose/pre-diabetic” test results high-wire for the last decade or so. I used to be much more active (pre-COVID) and ate better in the past, but as I get on in my years, I am worried that this is going to become an inevitability even if I were to resume my previous exercise and nutrition regiments.
I think a lot of us can benefit greatly from hindsight and, even if it can’t help you now, what were some warnings/indications you were diabetic before you actually confirmed it? If you’re up for sharing, what was the final event that forced you to seek help and eventually get diagnosed?
Thank you, in advance, for any information you are willing to share!
Edit: Updated the title to specify Type-2 diabetics. Still, T1 that know how they were feeling prior to are more than welcome to comment, as well!
As a frequent pee-er myself I think I should talk to my doctor
The big ones for me were a frequent, sudden, urgent need to pee and getting up multiple times a night to pee. I also drank a copious amount of water. Like, the whole “eight glasses a day” thing which used to be popular was confusing to me, as I’d drink that much in the first couple hours of the day. I finally went in to the doctor and got a blood test and my A1Cs were well over the “welcome to Diabetes Land” number. With diet, exercise and drugs I’m well controlled now and caught it early enough that I still have good feeling in my feet. Given my family history, and all the shit I ate in my younger days, it’s not really a surprise. I just have to be more careful now, but I have discovered an enjoyment of climbing because of it.
Really, if you have any family history of diabetes, start visiting your doctor on an annual basis and getting a blood test. It’s simple, and catching it earlier is good for preventing problems with neuropathy in your feet.
Mine was found completely randomly - I went in for blood work because I was having stomach issues after returning from a trip and my GP wanted to rule out an infection. I was really surprised to learn it, because I wasn’t overweight nor did I have a family history! But it just happens sometimes, I guess. In retrospect - I was always very thirsty and had to pee much more than a normal human.
It’s been controlled for a while but unfortunately I now have some tingles in the feet, which developed a full year after I started medication and got everything under control. My neurologist believes it’s basically the delayed effects of the previously uncontrolled sugars. Fortunately, it’s been stable for several years since and seems to be every so slowly improving slightly.
I imagine I would have much worse neurological issues had I not discovered it until later.
Sounds like you dodged a bullet (to the foot), so to speak! ;) Thanks for the comment.
Late onset type 1 diabetes for me. The big symptoms for me were suddenly having to use the bathroom all the time and everything being blurry. I got those symptoms all of a sudden after being down with covid for a week. Diagnosed about a month later with an a1c of 10.
Metformin and a low-ish carb diet kept it in check for a bit before my doctor figured out it was type 1 and put me on insulin.
Isn’t that always how it goes. I had high hopes that generative AI could help find cures to all sorts of diseases and ailments, or links between things we previously wouldn’t have linked because of limited scope of info. Then, ya know, capitalism had to do it’s thing and now AI is used to replace the jobs we want to be doing so we can more focus on the jobs we hate! I bring this up to say that if you could put in your symptoms, no matter how detached, and get a decent idea where to look, it could have saved you and countless others that doctor lookup time. Maybe one day that’ll be a thing we can rely on!
This probably sounds stupid, but I just kinda… started feeling diabetic? 😅 Like, how I was feeling matched my extremely vague idea of “what diabetes might feel like”, so I asked for blood tests, and yep.
I don’t think peeing a lot was really part of mine. I just found eating usually made me feel worse instead of better, and I was starting to get occasional tingling in my hands and feet.
Dude.
You nailed the reason for this post, actually. After 41-years, I know what to expect from my body. What prompted me to write this was that I was not feeling the same as before and, like you, I’m finding that eating makes me feel worse, not better. It used to just be a dull, malaise feeling. This post is because it feels much more present than before Thanksgiving. Like a head-rush or from drinking too much coffee. However, my coffee intake hasn’t changed over the years and I usually am done drinking coffee by 9-10am. Eating or not eating leads to slight nausea, a head-rush feeling (as mentioned), and almost like minor movement is slurred or delayed.
Ruling out illness or some sort of late-onset allergy, and given my family history, it got me thinking that these ill feelings may be the indications that I’m tipping more toward the diabetic side of the scale after striking a balance for so many years. Thank you for your reply!
You’re so welcome! Good luck getting whatever it is figured out!
Assuming it’s the same feeling, it’s such a weird one to try and describe. I think that rings true though: it’s like a caffeine buzz, only it makes you feel sluggish instead of energised. 😅
YMMV, but if it is diabetes, the good news is it probably won’t take too many changes to start feeling better. I just went as low carb as I could bear (probably more Atkins than keto, so nothing too drastic) and cut out caffeine (it can cause blood sugar spikes). For now, that’s enough to manage it without any meds or finger-pricks, and I feel so much better! You don’t even feel that deprived when you’re having rich, creamy sauces on everything, and I’ve lost 32 lbs in less than 3 months, even while snacking the normal amount. 😂 I don’t even really exercise!
It all started in 2022 for me, when my 10,000 trips to the toilet a day peeing habit impeded my sleep. A quick trip to the gp and a stick in a sample later, I was told, yep, it’s the 'beetus. I pee like a normal human being now. But gosh that was exhausting. I was borderline pre-diabetic for a while before that.
Early early early weirdness is that mosquitoes won’t bite you.
Get your blood tested annually and be healthy!
I used to make better choices and be more active. I want to return to those ways but things just seem so…hard…and almost not worth the effort sometimes. It’s my hope that by making this post, feeling the way I have the last couple of days, will snap me out of my funk and focus on my health more readily. I’m so much better at helping others get their shit together, compared to my own.
Thanks for taking the time to comment!
Wounds not healing, a shoulder injury that got worse over a few years (physio requested blood test that lead to diagnosis), sleep interrupted by peeing, low energy, E.D.
When I went in blood sugar was 17.5 after 12 hour fasting. They couldn’t shove medicine in me quick enough.
Hopefully caught it before I lose vision
I had no early warnings. I woke up one morning with blurred vision after a bad cold, went to the doctor, had a 600 blood sugar, A1C of 12.1, and they had me admitted.
Upon further introspection, constipation.
I am assuming you are talking about T2 diabetes? I got diagnosed with T1 as a 3 year old, so i don‘t remember much of it. My parents told me i was always very tired and thirsty, and i didn‘t eat much.
Yes, I suppose I should specify the Type-2. I’ll update the title, now, thanks! And thanks for your reply!!
Sounds similar to the months before my T1 diagnosis at 27. More and more thirsty, less and less hungry. Water would fly through me too, making me suddenly have to pee not long after drinking.
Man beeing diagnosed at 27 must suck. The advantage at getting diagnosed at a very young age is that you can‘t envy the life before.
The only real impacts it has had are making me pay more attention to how I feel and more intentional about how I eat. I’m not going back for seconds just because they are there since I consciously decided that my initial portion was a good amount. I’m also not going a day without eating since it didn’t cross my mind because I can see that little line slowly go down and it reminds me that food is good.
Modern tech is amazing. The management of T1D has been reduced to a glance at my phone every once in a while and a couple keystrokes when I eat something.
I was talking to someone recently who was diagnosed as a little kid and the stuff that they went through sounded awful. Their adult management of it is no better than mine is for having gone through that.
About 3 years ago I started getting tingling in my toes. That soon evolved into pain, and numbness. Eventually, I ended up having a small stroke. During the stroke it was discovered that I had an a1c of nine which is extremely high. I’ve gotten it under control now but the damage is done and I have full-blown neuropathy on my feet.
Are you taking anything for the neuropathy? Are you experiencing any improvement over time? My neurologist seem to think that while recovery as such is not feasible, that at least modest improvements are possible through long term healing and medication. Granted, this sounds like a particularly bad case, and I’m so sorry to hear you’re going through this.
I’ve been on Symbalta. Its helped a bit, but still have a decent amount of pain and numbness. Its also a mild sedative so at least it helps me sleep
Damn, I’m really sorry to hear that. I hope it will improve for you with time. For what it’s worth I understand symbalta can be combined with pregabalin/gabapentin. The combination may help. I’m getting by on gabapentin alone and it’s definitely not 100% with the tingles and pricks, but far better than not taking it. I’m contemplating asking to increase the dose.
Thank you for sharing and sorry to hear about your health issues. I get my glucose checked at least once a year, but only since talking to my brother about his health issues did the term A1C come up. I don’t understand why my doctor hasn’t had that test on the docket for labs. Seems like a good thing to keep track of given, ya know, the family history and my line-riding of the glucose scale.
If you’ve gotten a comprehensive blood test, it will be in there. You can get a kit to test at home, but its not the most pleasant thing. A normal glucose test will give you most of what you need, can get those kits for pretty cheap. Mine was like $40 and enough to test daily for 3 months.
