My diagnosis story – DKA & Me

We all have a story…..

Here is my story of diagnosis, we all have one and if you are anything like me, I love to read other peoples.

After the past couple of years of being healthy and shifting all my excess weight, my health was in great shape, or so I thought. We were now in early August 2014 and I knew that I had been losing weight, most of my clothes didn’t fit for a start!! Worryingly I had not been exercising or eating particularly well!

By mid August people were starting to say I was looking ”too skinny”, and I must admit I had thought it to myself. I decided ”lets wait a couple of weeks and see how it goes” In that 2 weeks I began deliberately over eating, hoping to gain some weight back. I had my normal dinners, but accompanied them with 4 slices of Hovis finest thick cut white bread, every night, followed by a nice desert of ice cream with chocolate sauce. Now with hindsight I realise how lucky I am I never put myself into a coma!! At a guess I would say I was taking about 600g carbs a day on board.

End of the 2 weeks come round, jumped on the scales, same story half a stone……. lost!!!

 

Dr Google to the rescue

I don’t need to see a GP, lets Google the symptoms. Googled it and decided I must have an over active Thyroid, no need to see a GP and waste their time. 

BBQ
2 weeks before diagnosis

 

I had a BBQ at my house on the Sunday, I ate and drunk a lot, in fact probably drunk a bit too much. This was the year of the ice bucket challenge, had great fun tipping a bin load of iced water over my niece that day, looking back at the video of that I can see just how ill I was looking. I awoke on bank holiday Monday feeling very sorry for myself. A banging head, sore throat and a thirst like I had never experienced before.

It was today where it really went downhill fast!!

A thirst like never before

On the Tuesday I weighed myself, another 5 lbs weight loss, even with the weekends excesses. More worrying to me was this thirst I had, nothing was quenching it. That day I drank 4 litres of fizzy drinks during the day at work, another 2 litres water when I got home, and I was still thirsty.
During the night I must of got up about 6 times to use the loo, in my simple mind I thought ”that’s normal as I drunk so much today”.

Got up next morning and called my GP next appointment was 8 days away, much the norm at my surgery, so I took that one. If I had known how bad this could have turned out, I would have been straight to A&E!!

As the days went by, that thirst got worse and worse. I was happy I had found a drink to quench my thirst at last, Monster energy drink. A can of that would hold off the thirst for a good 2 hours before I needed more fluid.

Judgement day

Had a quick weigh in before I went to the doctors, same story another 5lbs off and was weighing 11 stone now. I hadn’t been 11 stone since I was about 14 years old, you can see how big I was a couple years before diagnosis ➡ here.

Sitting in the waiting room at my GP surgery I kind of knew what was coming, I am an educated man and couldn’t kid myself that this was nothing serious any longer. I thought about the symptoms I had been having

  1. Really thirsty all the time
  2. Getting up 5 or 6 times a night to use the loo
  3. Always really tired after I had eaten
  4. Big unexplained weight loss
  5. Thrush
  6. Cuts had been taking ages to heal

This was only going to end one way really wasn’t it

My appointment was called and I sat in front of a GP I had never met before. Before I had even finished telling him my symptoms he was calling the nurse to get her to prick my finger and check something on a meter. I didn’t realise then that this would become a daily occurrence, in fact some days an hourly occurrence. That first finger prick really hurt, kind of got used to that now I guess. The reading came back as 26.4, that didn’t mean a thing to me, meant something to the nurse though as she proceeded to get a different strip and put in her meter. Pricked my finger again and this one was much better, just 7.6 this time. In my mind that must be a good thing right? Turns out not such a good thing, that second reading was my ketones. In case you don’t know, normal ketones should be around the zero mark.

Back in the doctors office and he said that he was fairly sure I had diabetes. He typed up a letter and put it into an envelope. I was then told I need to go to A&E urgently and give them the letter, I was in a state of DKA. high blood sugars and high ketones are a bad mix apparently.

That was it, in an instant life had changed forever more.

A&E threw up some interesting stories, I will save those for another blog, keep an eye out for it

Well that’s my story, hope you can relate in some way

Take care like Yogi bear

 

Type1Bri

3 thoughts on “My diagnosis story – DKA & Me

  • Debbie

    Thanks for sharing

  • Sarah

    Thank you for sharing the journey of your T1 diagnosis. My son was diagnosed in December 2014. Funny how you feel a connection with people on a similar journey that you’ve never met.

  • […] This is the first time I have taken part in diabetes blog week, an unexpected venture for me. I am really looking forward to it, but first a little intro….. I am Bri, from London England, a type one diabetic diagnosed later on in life at the age of 33. You can read all about my diagnosis ➡ Here. […]

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