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Permalink Reply by awg0681 on March 22, 2012 at 12:21pm

I was exactly the same. Actually, you and I were diagnosed on the same day benjamin. About a month and a half or 2 before I finally went to the doctor I was running to the bathroom literally every hour. Same thing throughout the night as well and I just couldn't get enough to drink. My fasting levels were well above 300(sometimes over 500 and that's what finally got me to go to the doctor) and even after cutting out fasting nearly all carbs for two days my fasting levels were still close to 300. However, my insulin needs have remained steady but my BG levels have been very managable. I seem to be kinda in the middle of your situation and palominovet's. Not sure if I'm even having a honeymoon. It certainly doesn't seem like you are, palomino. =/ From the little research I've done it seems like a honeymoon kicks in pretty fast if it is going to.

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Permalink Reply by palomino on March 22, 2012 at 12:23pm

I think I was just too sweet for too long, haha.

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Permalink Reply by Benjamin McLaughlin on March 22, 2012 at 12:25pm

Yeah, I thought type 1 was totally genetic (shows you what I knew about this whole realm before,) so when I googled my symptoms, I thought there was no way. I don't remember feeling crappy any, but who knows, between college football and trying to graduate, there were a lot of crappy days that I probably could associate with a number of things. I think the extreme fluid intake probably saved both of us from DKA. After a month or so, I started telling my wife, "I think I may have diabetes." She kept telling me that it's in my head! Well, we made a nice bet....needless to say that is one wager I wish I hadn't of won.

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Permalink Reply by palomino on March 22, 2012 at 12:32pm

My boyfriend is a human doctor (albeit doing his residency in pathology). He sees me every day, and he didn't realize just how much weight I had lost.. I think he feels bad about it now, but again.. easier to avoid the inevitable bad news...

Ultimately, it was another friend in vet school who suggested I needed bloodwork done. I thought I was anemic due to girl reasons. We did a PCV (packed cell volume, rough estimate of how many red blood cells and white blood cells that you have) and then a blood smear on my blood and it looked fine to us (not that we're pros at it)... then I finally gave in and went to the doctor and everything was perfect, minus the fasting BG of 293. I should have known better and gone sooner, but did not.

Although T1 isn't totally genetic, there are genetic factors that predispose you... and a relation to diseases such as hyperthyroidism, which is present in several close female relatives in my family..

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Permalink Reply by awg0681 on March 22, 2012 at 1:49pm

Funny you should mention your boyfriend not noticing your weight loss. My girlfriend also didn't notice the weight that was dropping off of me. She feels bad that she didn't notice it, but I don't blame her. I think it's because she saw me daily and we tend not to notice things as much when they happen gradually over time. I didn't notice it either. My sister actually pointed it out to me on new years day. "You've lost weight!" Me - "Umm... no I haven't. You need your eyes checked". Two weeks later I weigh myself and sure enough I was down 25 lbs at that time with 10 more to come off before I got to the doc. I weighed myself 3 times on different scales cause I didn't think they could possibly be correct.

Just out of curiosity, what was your C-peptide level, palomino? I know Benjamin said in another thread his was around 0.8, mine was 0.34. So I'm just curious to know where yours fell in the spectrum if they did that test and if there's any correlation to a honeymoon or lack thereof. Were either of you also tested for GAD (same as GAD-65) antibodies? I came back around 35% on that.

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Permalink Reply by palomino on March 22, 2012 at 2:05pm

I knew that I had lost weight- but kept wanting to blame it on clinics (again, God, how retarded was that?). I lost about.. 23 pounds total since clinics started, 12 of it over a 6 week period in August when the PU/PD set in.

C-peptide was 1.1. However, that was not fasting; that sample was taken about 2 hours after I had eaten so that complicates interpretation... even though it's still low..

Also, I had no islet cell antibodies but my anti-GAD level was 64.7.

I guess at the ER, some of them wanted to call me a type 2... I told them I had never been grossly obese, but at my height of 5'6", I did weigh about 175lbs at one point years ago... (but there are perfectly normal weight healthy individuals that are diagnosed with type 2 as well)... but one of the docs thought I was type 1 and pushed for the antibody testing.

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Permalink Reply by Benjamin McLaughlin on March 22, 2012 at 2:26pm

I didn't get either test done. I have heard a bit about them. Can you tell me what each antibody is and what it means if you test positive for either?

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Permalink Reply by palomino on March 22, 2012 at 2:42pm

Basically, they are just antibodies to your pancreatic beta cells.. In adult onset T1, ICA is usually negative and GAD antibodies are more likely to be positive.

GAD stands for glutamic acid decarboxylase, an intracellular enzyme normally present in the pancreatic beta cells.

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Permalink Reply by Benjamin McLaughlin on March 22, 2012 at 3:00pm

I went to two different endos, neither said anything about it. I guess I was a typical diagnosis? Do you recommend getting them done?

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Permalink Reply by palomino on March 22, 2012 at 3:27pm

I can't recommend anything because I'm not your doctor.. you could ask your endo if they did them or if they plan to..

It won't really change the treatment though.

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Permalink Reply by awg0681 on March 22, 2012 at 3:33pm

My GP was the one that ran the GAD test on me. I got the full panel of results faxed to me and that's when I saw that he had the GAD run for me. At that time I didn't know what it was and he never said anything about it. Now I know 35% is out of the norm (I think <1% is normal/acceptable, but I'd have to look at the paperwork to be sure). My endo didn't think ICA and other tests were necessary for me when I asked about them since everything else was pointing squarely at T1. But like Palomino said, you can always ask!

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Permalink Reply by Shawnmarie on March 23, 2012 at 9:16am

Jumping in to answer your initial question. I was diagnosed on 10/1/11 with an A1C of 9.8, c-peptide of 1.0 (listed normal range of 1.0 to 7.1)and positive GAD of 6.86 (listed normal range being <.02) My honeymoon seemed to really kick in after about two months. I've been holding steady at about 3 to 4 units of bolus insulin per day (average I:C for meals of 1:25) and no basal. Some days I don't seem to need any insulin at all, but then I'll push it and it will be apparent I'm indeed diabetic. Like last night, I snacked on about 20g of carb over a couple hours and was over 200 by the time I was ready for bed. Even with that, my fasting this morning was 89.

Editing to clarify that actually, I've probably been honeymooning from the second week after diagnosis when it became apparent I didn't need any basal. It was around the two month mark that I started needing less bolus than I'd been using.

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