We are pretty healthy people, not too much wrong other than the occasional cold or respiratory issues. At one time, the doctors thought I had Lupus but it turned out that I didn’t…Thank Goodness.
When Carson got sick a few months ago, we had no idea what it was. At first, we thought it might be the flu but it lingered.
He went to the doctor but they didn’t do any blood work on him. His symptoms never matched a diagnosis of any disease.
The symptoms that he had in the beginning were extreme fatigue, weight loss, irritability and foot pain. He also lost around 30 pounds in two months.
We had no idea what was causing the weight loss or the feeling of being sick all time.
He lost a lot of weight a couple of years ago. At the time, we thought it was stress and he gained the weight back so we didn’t think anything of it. In hindsight, that is probably when he started to get sick.
Carson is not very heavy to begin with. He’s tall at 6 foot 1 and a half inches but he was never heavy so he didn’t have much weight to lose.
That’s why the thought of him having diabetes never crossed my mind.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and everything got worse.
Carson’s new symptoms were vision problems, numbness of the feet, very thirsty and ran to the bathroom a lot. He said that it was a thirst like he has never felt before. It was like he had to have water ALL THE TIME.
I’m not sure how much you know about this disease but I know nothing about diabetes. I feel so bad now that it didn’t register to me that that’s what it was.
He was talking to some people at his work about his symptoms and a coworker asked him if he ever considered that he had diabetes. Carson told him that he thought about it but never had that checked.
The coworker told him that he had two blood glucose meters and he would bring them to check his levels.
The next day, they checked his levels at work and they were so high that the meter couldn’t even read them! All it said was High. So we bought our own meter at Wal-Mart and checked it again….the same reading. Our son and I checked our levels and they were normal. That’s when we knew. It was diabetes.
We called the doctor and was seen the next day. They ran all kinds of blood work.
One of the tests was called A1c. This measures the amount of hemoglobin in the blood that has the glucose attached to it. Hemoglobin’s lifespan is approximately three months. His test came back at 14.
I have researched this and a normal level is 5.6 or below. A level of 5.7 to 6.4 percent indicates pre-diabetes. People with full blown diabetes have a level of 6.5 percent or above.
What this means is that he has had these very high and very scary levels for over 3 months! If we waited any longer, he would have most definitely been in a coma.
The doctor told us that because he lost so much weight, he most likely has Type 1 diabetes and will need to be on insulin for the rest of his life.
But we recently got the test results back and it turned out to be Type 2 diabetes.
This is a good thing because that means that it can be controlled with diet and medication. So finally some good news.
I’m telling you all of this to raise awareness about this disease. I wish I would have known the signs a lot sooner so we could’ve gotten the proper care before it got this bad.
If you or your child are experiencing any of these symptoms, talk to your doctor immediately for further testing.
All it takes is a simple test that takes a couple of minutes to rule out diabetes.
Here is a list of some of the resources that we have used that has helped us so far:
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This proves that no matter how big you are or how small, anyone can be affected by this disease.
Now you know why we have been MIA the past few weeks. We hope to get back to some projects soon when we get his diet and medication straightened out. Thank you so much for sticking with us while we make this adjustment!
Speaking of diet, do you know of any good diabetic recipes that we can try? I have been trying to meal plan like crazy for something that the whole family wants to eat but am not doing very well.
If you have a recipe that you would like to share or a diabetes story of your own, leave a comment down below 👇
If you would rather talk about your story one on one or if you have questions, feel free to send us an email at firstname.lastname@example.org