Was a low Carb Lifestyle hiding symptoms of diabetes for years?

[julieart]

I can't wait until I have my doctor's appointment to get some feedback on this issue. I was a faithful low-carber since 2001, then last summer, went off for no other reason than "life just got chaotic" (I'm sure nobody can relate to that ;) ...anyhow, low-carb has never been hard for me, so it was/is just me being lazy. Anyhow, I have been noticing vision blurring for the past 6 months or so (a few months after leaving the low-carb lifestle) but didnt connect it until I went to the eye doctor today. You see, it is just in the afternoon that this happens. I teach at a "high risk" school, so many of my lunch periods get taken up with dealing with kid issues, many days I dont eat until late afternoon or evening (but I do snack on almonds and cheese mid morning) . A year ago I had 20/20 vision, today, this afternoon, I couldnt read the last line on the chart. It only happens in the afternoon, If my appointment was in the morning, I probably would have had 20/20... My Eye doc, said every thing else looked normal, and that he thought I should test for diabetes before getting glasses. I have no other symptoms of diabetes other than the vision thing...so my question to you all is...do you think that I may have had diabetes for some years (I am 44 now) but because of low-carb living, it was under control? (remember, I am not diagnosed with diabetes, but just advised to be tested...)

[Nancy LC]

Could be but there's no use jumping to conclusions until you get tested. You might want to be sure to get the Ha1bc test to know what your blood sugar has been averaging. And if you're really worried, get a blood glucose monitor and check yourself. Might be kind of good to do so you can see how your body reacts to every day stuff, things they can't pick up with a GTT or Hba1c.

[Lottadata]

It is very possible.

Buy yourself a Wal-mart meter and a pack of strips and do some testing one and two hours after eating before you head over to the doctor. The Relion meter reads about 10-15 mg/dl high from my experience, but it should be consistent.

If you see after meal readings consistently over 150 prediabetes is a possibility. Over 180 and yes, you need to go to the doctor immediately.

The best treatment for pre-diabetes is a low carb diet, with perhaps the addition of Metformin if you can't flatten out the bgs. But at this point you need to use your meter to figure out what is going on.

Doctors tend to pooh-pooh anything but a very high fasting bg, so it is well to be armed with some data before taking yours on. My brother was seeing high numbers after meals, but his doc just gave him a fasting test and when it wasn't over 125 told him he was "fine" which he most definitely was not.

[julieart]

Thanks you two, I will start with that great information...and in the mean time...I am going back on the low-carb program that served me so well for many years. Nice to find this forum.
Best, Julie

[swirlygirl]

I am in the same boat. I have followed of a low carb diet for much of the past 10 years. Before that, I had symptoms of hypoglycemia that my doctor dismissed as normal (my lab tests were all normal... so it must have been all in my mind, right?).

For the past two years, due to many changes and stresses in my life, I've not been low carb. Now my lab tests are starting to inch up to the pre-diabetic levels. Now that I have a meter (which I bought for $4.99 at CVS), and I'm back on low carb, I can see exactly how much carb effect my blood sugar. I've also noticed, that even without low carb, my blood sugar goes back to normal levels after a few hours without eating. BUT, my blood sugar spikes after carbs and was elevated in the morning.

At the doctors office, the two tests they have will show 1) fasting blood sugar, which is usually normal for me in the afternoon, and 2) average blood sugar over the past 3 months, which is close to normal for me because of my afternoon lows, and lows while I sleep.

So, a meter might help you better understand your situation, even if the doctors tests aren't conclusive.

Hope this helps.

[Lottadata]

The doctor's tests unfortunately, won't flag you as having abnormal blood sugars until your blood sugars have been high enough to give you neuropathy and early retinal changes!

The diagnostic cutoffs are set far, far too high. That is why one half of all people first diagnosed with diabetes already have complications that take up to a decade to develop!

Any A1c (that's the 3 month test) over 5.5% should be taken as a warning sign. Any fasting blood sugar in the 90s should be taken as a warning sign. Studies show that people with fasting bgs in the 90s are much more likely to progress to full fledged diabetes in a decade.

But the post-meal reading is the one that really matters because that high blood sugar after meals is what damages organs--including the beta cell itself!

[RobLL]

by hard personal experience I can confirm the previous post

[Rose1942]

You are so right about the neuropathy, Jenny. Here's what happened to me over the past 5 years, the progression of it was sneaky and I never did suspect diabetes, you will see why.

Five years ago I came down with some terrible flu thing. It was the sickest I have ever been, yet the flu test that they do with the swab came back negative. Nonetheless I got sicker. After a few weeks of being sick and starting to feel relatively normal again, I awoke one morning with Bell's Palsy. No kidding. The right side of my face was strangely numb, I couldn't close one eye, and I drooled my coffee (which is how I first learned I had something going on). That very day I got into the clinic and was diagnosed and put on steroids - good thing because getting on them within the first 48 hurs is critical. Well, I did recover from that in about 2 or 3 weeks. Thought all that was over with.

Then I suddenly got a 'relapse' of whatever the flu thing was. After several visits, they finally decided I had mono. Mind you I was 60 yrs. old at the time, who would have thought of mono? But apparently there was a mini epidemic of it in our area, something like 35 cases so far in that family practice clinic alone. Anyway I was sick for 6 months, and half sick for another year. And never did feel really well after that until recently.

At that point another doctor was brought in to the mix. A hemotologist, because my hematocrit was high. Now they said I had polycythemia (a blood disorder of the red cells). There are two kinds, they said mine was the more benign one - that's good! But I had to have a pint of blood drawn frequently as therapy for that condition.

Now.......... here's the thing. Not too long after all this I began to have numbness and tingling in my toes. Then pain in my calves. I was told that these symptoms sometimes affect people with polycythemia, and I looked this all up and saw that sometimes that is true. I have been going around with numbness in the toes for several years now, though the pain in the calves went away. Thought it was from the blood thing plus the effects of the severe mono having weakened me (I thought forever, actually).

AND NOW - 3 months ago I was told I had diabetes. I have been low carbing for 2 1/2 months. And the numbness in the toes is GONE GONE GONE. It started going away about a month into the low carb, and is really gone now. How about that? Not only did no one discover the diabetes before this, but no one told me that numbness in the toes could be caused by something other than the blood disorder. And the only reason the numbness is gone now is because of what I did myself (low carb) to reduce my blood sugars.

PLUS, my hemoglobin is now working down all by itself. From highs of between 16 and 17, it is moving slowly downward. last month 14.5, this month 13.8.

How much of the previous misery was actually being caused by high blood sugars? I will probably never know.

I am sooooooooooooooooooo mistrustful of the medical community.

[Lottadata]

Rose,

What a miserable series of events to have to go through!

I hate to say it, but it is very possible that the cortisone pushed you over the brink from pre- to fully diabetic. That is what happened to me.

I posted a question years ago on another board about how people got diagnosed and heard from several who went from pre- to full diabetes or diabetes controlled with diet alone to needing meds thanks to Prednisone.

It often seems as if doctors today are ignorant about anything out of the ordinary that doesn't lead to the prescription of an expensive new drug.

My doctors never thought "diabetes" though I had years of UTIs and continual yeast infections and a history of Gestational Diabetes when very thin.

At least with diabetes, though, the diabetes community is well aware of a lot of things and really helpful. You should be able to keep yourself fine and the great thing about the online support is that you can learn what to ask your doc for--tests and meds--and not rely on their lack of interest and/or expertise about diabetes.

[gwynne2]

The doctor's tests unfortunately, won't flag you as having abnormal blood sugars until your blood sugars have been high enough to give you neuropathy and early retinal changes!

Could someone expound on the retinal changes? I've tried a quick google but not getting much that is quickly helpful. :)

I ask because I noticed a weird thing this week:

I was a lifelong contact lens wearer until about 4 years ago...they just started bothering me or giving me headaches within a few days, even after a refitting, so I switched over to glasses and only put in contacts for special occasions (and would have to take them out again within 1-2 days).

This weekend I put in my lenses when I was dyeing my hair, and I woke up this morning and realized I still have them in and they haven't been giving me any trouble at all.

I've been on strict LC+IF for the last six weeks. Any possible correlation? Should I be worried that I started having the contact lens problem in the first place?

Thanks--sorry if this is way off-base.

[Lottadata]

Gwynne,

Vision changes when your blood sugar drops 50-80 mg/dl or more because when your blood sugar rises it gets into the fluids of the eye and changes its refractive qualities.

This is completely different from retinopathy which has no symptoms at all until you get bleeds in your eye and lose chunks of your field of vision or have it all fill up with big black spots.

The changes from blood sugar dropping are completely harmless. I always test my blood sugar before getting a new prescription because if I was over 140 mg/dl my glasses might not work most of the time.

And when I used to eat any significant amount of carbs before I started using insulin, I would stop being able to read the signs on the highway because of the blood sugar change. Scary!

But not worrisome!

[Rose1942]

Well, there was really no choice but to use prednisone for the Bell's Palsy. That is one thing that you really have to nip in the bud, or it can be much more severe and even irreversible, I do know that. It was very unpleasant for the time that I had it, believe me. Sagging smile, wonky looking eye that would not close so I had to wear a patch at night, plus put ointment in to keep it lubricated. I looked bad, people don't like to look at someone with Bell's. Steroids are absolutely necessary for it, unfortunately.

[AuntWie]

I am sooooooooooooooooooo mistrustful of the medical community


Boy do I hear that! I had Mono in college. When I had relapses, docs said that Mono confers immunity, like Chicken Pox. Wrong! Refused to test for hypoglycemia, despite symptoms, saying it was a "made up" disease. I suspect now that I'm pre-diabetic, but don't know if I need to see a doc about it since I am now convinced that l/c is the only healthy way to eat. What do you guys think?

[Lottadata]

Well, there was really no choice but to use prednisone for the Bell's Palsy. That is one thing that you really have to nip in the bud, or it can be much more severe and even irreversible, I do know that. It was very unpleasant for the time that I had it, believe me. Sagging smile, wonky looking eye that would not close so I had to wear a patch at night, plus put ointment in to keep it lubricated. I looked bad, people don't like to look at someone with Bell's. Steroids are absolutely necessary for it, unfortunately.

Rose,

I totally understand. The big issue I see with steroids is that they are lifesavers in some situations and completely unnecessary in others. What really steams me is that they were given to me two different times for conditions where they have been shown to be completely useless.

What I've noticed is that orthopedic doctors use them like a sugar pill if you show up with something they can't otherwise treat. I guess it is supposed to justify the huge amount they charge for the appointment.

When I had a frozen shoulder every doctor I saw insisted on giving me a steroid shot. Even though the research shows that steroids not only don't change the progress of frozen shoulder, they can contribute to tendon rupture.

My first large dose of steroids were given for drug-induced tinnitus. Completely worthless, except that it left me with diabetes.

But there are many conditions for which steroids are not only helpful but lifesaving.

I would just warn anyone who has diabetes to check very carefully online before assuming that steroids are the appropriate treatment for a condition.

And DON'T believe any doctor who tells you that elecrtophoresis doesn't put steroids into your blood stream. I fell for that one and had a week of high blood sugars to show for it. My experience is that every exposure to cortisone leaves me with less blood sugar function. So I wasn't happy about that at all!

[Nancy LC]

When I had relapses, docs said that Mono confers immunity, like Chicken Pox. Wrong! Refused to test for hypoglycemia, despite symptoms, saying it was a "made up" disease. I suspect now that I'm pre-diabetic, but don't know if I need to see a doc about it since I am now convinced that l/c is the only healthy way to eat. What do you guys think?

If you have pre-diabetes your doctor probably won't do a thing for you. But YOU should. Get a glucose meter and start testing, read up on it. Jenny's web site is fantastic: http://bloodsugar101.com. You really want to make sure you don't start to accumulate damage to your body from your condition. If your blood sugars aren't 100% controlled by diet alone, you might need some medication too. Best to know that than try to pretend everything is fine by staying ignorant of your current condition.