type 1 diabetics diagnosed later in life
hi. anyone get diagnosed with type 1 later in life? i got it at 32 yrs old. it hit me fast.within a few months i lost about 20lbs...lost most of my eye sight...couldnt remember anything. so exhausted....thirst beyond belief.....it was a huge adjustment b/c i lived 32 yrs without it. i felt like i litterally started my life over. it was so overwhelming. id love to hear from ppl tht got it even in their early 20s. ive only had it 5 yrs so it took me til now to finally get things under somewhat of control. i am very outgoing n always felt very insync with others...now having diabetes i find a part of me feels very "alone" even though im not. even when i explain what im going threw at times..i know tht ppl dont really get what im goin threw. wld love to hear from ppl in the same boat as me. :))
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Zoe on -
Yes, I think it's very effective and that was even before the surgery was that common. It was awhile ago so I can't remember exactly, but I don't think the recovery was very long - maybe a week or so? I had one hand done at a time and was glad I did that because it's hard enough not being able to use one hand - two at once would have been rough.
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Permalink Reply by Wren on -
Thanks for starting this conversation! So glad that we have a place to vent and hear other people's stories.
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Permalink Reply by jessica on -
im grateful i got it when i did too. ofcourse i dnt want it but since i had to have it..ill take it now. i hate when ppl tht dnt have it put in their non educated cents. u said u just recently got this? god i remeber the first yr was tough...if u need to vent...vent away :)
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Permalink Reply by Natalie ._c- on -
I can relate, Rennie. My grandmother had diabetes, diagnosed when she was somewhere in her 40's, and when my mother passed her 50's and 60's and 70's and never showed any sign of it, I thought I was home free. Alas, but no. I was my grandmother's favorite grandchild, and of 9 grandchildren, I was the one she gave it to! Not fair, but that's the way the genetic dice shake out, I guess!
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Permalink Reply by Donna H on -
Igot it in my 40s. In fact, Manny is LADA too -- he was in his 30s. You should check out the LADA group here.
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Permalink Reply by Nell on -
You can get T1 at any age, up to and including 100. I got it at 42 and diagnosed myself with some BG and ketone strips I had gotten from a diabetes meeting. Was working in the field of diabetes, even.
As someone else said, you are a young'un! You have plenty of company. Lots of folks who got it in their college years and your age range inhabit the forums. But most of the people on here don't interact by age but by their diabetes issues. It is a diverse group of people, in my opinion.
You will learn how to take care of yourself if you want to and have the foresight to recognize that what you do now will affect how your diabetes and any complications progress. If you keep your A1c at 7 or below (lots of people here are lower than that) you should get few if any complications. There is evidence that the "cut point" for complications is 7.3. Per my endo, though I have not seen the studies, if any. Of course, each person has a different kind of diabetes, even within T1. It depends on whether yours is fairly easy to manage or not or in-between. Mine is hard to manage but I still have stayed below 7.4 for a number of years. No complications other than some neuropathy that is not debilitating. Eyes only have normal aging issues, no diabetic eye disease. Good luck!
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Permalink Reply by Putertech on -
I was diagnosed 12 years ago at the age of 34. My mom was a Type 1 also (who was diagnosed when she was 34 too!). It came on suddenly, like yours did. I've been thin my whole life, but lost 25lbs in about a month. Because of my age, I was treated as a type 2, even though the CDE didn't think I was. Protocol, I guess. Was on oral meds for only a month. Seven years prior, I had gestational diabetes and had to take insulin then too.
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Permalink Reply by Shawnmarie on -
When I was diagnosed, the NP said it is protocol to assume it's T2 unless and until shown otherwise. With the statistics Melitta has cited re T1 in adults, that seems so crazy. Especially when the patient is thin and active. Luckily, he ordered the GAD test that day and within a week, I had my "proof" I was T1.
Editing to clarify that I'm not saying thin, active people cannot be T2. Just saying it's crazy to assume all adult newly diagnosed diabetics are T2 unless there is proof they are not.
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Permalink Reply by jessica on
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thts exactly what happend to me. im 5'7 n was 115 lbs when they diagnosed me. im a vegetarian n always worked out....they tried saying i was type 2 b/c of my age....but once they did more tests type 1 was confirmed. i had a few drs look at me like i had ten heads when i said i got diagnosed at 32.
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Permalink Reply by Teowyn on -
I was diagnosed in 2008 at age 31. I was actually in DKA--in the hospital for eight days (five in the ICU--probably longer than it could have been because I went in on at Thursday, and nothing of substance happens over the weekend). At dx, they did a c-peptide to determine type, and because I was really low, the official diagnosis was T1. This year, a new endo made me take a GAD antibody, which confirmed it.
I educated myself about diabetes as much as I could, and asked lots of questions online, which has helped me not feel so overwhelmed. I do let people around me know--it's enough part of my life now that I talk about it with different people off line. But I try not to complain unless I'm here, because the people around me just don't get it sometimes.
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