Type 2 diabetes diagnosis: 6 months later

This blood glucose reading of 127 mg/dL is a good showing for two hours after a breakfast of two fried eggs, turkey hash, salad instead of home fries, coffee and one piece of whole-grain toast. The four-mile walk, punctuated by breakfast in the middle, helped a lot. / CBS/Jaime Vazquez

NEW YORK I was sitting in my recliner watching TV on a sunny Sunday morning in June when my doctor called. I had been to see him that Friday for a checkup; he was passing on the alarming news that my blood glucose was over 300 mg/dL - about triple that of a healthy person.

"Whatever you do, don't eat anything sweet," he warned, after we made plans to have me see an endocrinologist that week.

After he hung up, I reviewed what I had eaten that morning: a latte from the French bakery down the street, along with a chocolate-almond croissant dusted in powdered sugar with two seams of rich dark chocolate inside. I had also polished off a pair of half-empty sorbet cartons in my freezer -- you know, to clear the decks for the coming week.

Sugar was pretty much all I had eaten that morning.

I spent the rest of the day googling the obvious likelihood that I had probably joined the ranks of 25.8 million Americans with diabetes. That's 8.3 percent of the U.S. population, according to the American Diabetes Association, and an estimated 7 million of those people don't even realize they have the disease. The ADA estimates another 79 million Americans are pre-diabetic -- which means they're well on their way to joining the club if they don't make lifestyle changes.

Taken together, that's more than 30 percent of the U.S. population that is diabetic, undiagnosed, or pre-diabetic, according to the ADA.

• American Diabetes Association: Statistics on diabetes in the U.S.

When I saw the endocrinologist two sugarless days later, my blood glucose was at 250 mg/dL -- still way too high. Another test of long-term control of blood glucose levels also had super-high levels.

A normal blood glucose ranges from 70 to 130 mg/dL before a meal to less than 180 mg/dL after a meal, according to ADA.

It was official: I was a Type 2 diabetic. My new endocrinologist gave me a blood monitoring kit, a couple of prescriptions and an admonishment to see a nutritionist. I was on my way into a new phase of my life.

The six months since my diagnosis have been an unsettling time -- a gut check of how much discipline I have; a daily test of my commitment to get healthier. I've had to readdress my relationship with two of my comrades-in-arms of middle-age, gluttony and sloth. I've spent a lot of time reading about what exactly diabetes is, and the pernicious effect it has on the entire body -- eyes, kidneys, liver, heart, blood vessels, nerve endings, feet, penis, skin.

As someone who has been prodigiously healthy all his life, it's been a sucker punch to be suddenly saddled with a chronic condition. I'm angry that I'm taking pills that have distressing side effects like flatulence and diarrhea. I'm secretly hoping that if I can drop a lot of weight, this will all go away -- which may or may not be in the cards.

I don't know why I was so shocked at this diagnosis. Both my father and maternal grandmother had developed Type 2 diabetes late in life -- but much later than myself at a mere 54 years.

In recent years the warning flags at my annual checkups had been more about high cholesterol and obesity. I remember a few years back listening to my doctor give me this and that result, and then asking him something like "Yes, but other than the weight, I'm in pretty good health, right?" To which, I'll never forget, he looked me in the eye and yelled "You're too fat!"

But high blood sugar was not on my radar, other than as a general issue that might crop up in my old age.

My symptoms, in the months before this checkup, were classic signs of the disease: unusual thirstiness, frequent urination. I had been getting up to go in the middle of the night, which I never did before. My kidneys seemed a little off their game. I now know that when you have excess sugar in your blood, your kidneys have to work harder to clear it. Of course that's just one of the many damaging effects from excess sugar ripping its way through your system.

I was overweight and felt sluggish -- but that was nothing new. I figured that's just how you felt when you're middle-aged and heavy. That's how we roll in fat America.

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[cleansemart]

herbal supplements and Naturopathy is highly reliant on nontoxic and organic treatment methodologies that assist patients in optimizing their body's natural potential to heal on its own. As a diabetic, your naturopathic doctor can be of tremendous help. www.1wallmart.com/category.php?id_category=14 He will guide you through making effective lifestyle changes that can help minimize the risk of diabetes. With the help of natural treatment methods, you will be able to effectively manage your diet, control your weight and relieve yourself of all the stresses in life consequently benefiting the management of your diabetes.

[gretchennnnn]

Learn about low-carb diets. There are many LC recipes that are as good as, or better than, regular recipes. LC diets seem especially helpful for people with metabolic syndrome.

http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/2/1/31

One example that came in today:

http://mariahealth.blogspot.com/2012/12/monkey-bread-and-what-is-xylem-sap.html

[hblavky]

"Wow, I admire you".... "I hope you reach your set goals and keep up with your health choices" :Dxd

[Freedomflyer09]

Good, encouraging words. I'm a 62 year old who was diagnosed 3 1/2 years ago (when ending up in the hospital with pancreatitis and a gall bladder removal) and my 55 year old husband was diagnosed 3 1/2 months ago. History in both of our families. Sluggish lifestyle, in terms of exercise - especially me. We like carbs - so we're overweight, because we're undisciplined.

Some weeks/days/meals/cravings we do better than others. Overall, we have fairly good control of it, according to my A1c and my husband's monitor reads. I have a great endocrinologist, who understands the "marathon" we've been handed. You're so right on about the first few months. I found it to be so, and my doc said the same thing. We get tired of it. But it is what it is -- until it isn't any longer.

Enjoyed your article, and will be forwarding it on to my husband. Hoping for a better grasp in 2013.

Connie
Glendale, AZ

[Jfmmd]

Congratulations on a good start. Later comes the psychological shift from "I'm going to be a good boy and whip this " to "Oh, no. This is actually a part of me, and I will have to deal with it all my life." Kind of a shift to acceptance. Then, often people will be more able to make the necessary sacrifices.

[liveloveforgod]

When you go behind politics we see that type 2 diabetes has already been reversed without this dangerous drugs. Dr Liu in Denmark revealed how to reverse diabetes without any medications. Diabetes has been reversed in over 10,000 people by using a specialized diabetes diet. The diet also reversed body fat in people trying to lose weight. Scientists showed food chemicals is the cause of almost all diabetes. Our legal processed foods cause diabetes. Researchers showed to reverse your own diabetes without medications

just google SPIRIT HAPPY DIET

[ludvig1-2009]

When I was roughly your age, I got the benefit of having my doctor tell me after my fasting blood sugar from one annual physical to the next jumped from a high normal of 99 to 113, halfway to 126 and diabetes that if I didn't lose weight I'd get diabetes. When I was in college I had a summer job selling ice cream and lived in a hotel where I could plug my jeep in to keep the ice cream cool. One of the older gentleman living in the hotel had an ingrown toe nail along with diabetes which led to amputation of his foot and then his leg, so the doctor scare the hell out of me. I lost 20 lbs. in 20 days, going from 260.9 to 240.9. I'm now at 225 and my fasting blood sugar the last physical was 90. I still eat ice cream and candy but I do 1000 calories of exercise a day, or at least I did, now I do 1000 calories of activity a day. For my 225 weight I burn 120 calories a mile walking and 57 calories a miles riding my bicycle. Of course I can burn it a lot faster on the bicycle as I go 3 times as fast. It takes about 3 hours. I also burn 3 calories a minute standing or driving, so if I take my wife shopping, like today after driving her to the doctor which amounted to 2 hours and 47 minutes, I burnt 500 calories doing that, 230 calories walking earlier and 260 calories riding my bicycle. I also burn 250 calories cutting the front and back lawn and 300 calories vacuuming the house. I take off Sunday to give my knee a break and ride my bicycle daily to take the place of some walking also to give my knee a break. The only bad part of riding a bicycle is the local cops coined this phrase according to the local paper of SOB's standing for Scum on bicycles. I got harassed by them for a while, taking my picture twice riding my bicycle, putting a decoy car in my walking path, hiding behind a truck thinking I'd steal something from an open garage door when I was walking laps around the park. I saw the senior volunteer ducking down in his vehicle so I wouldn't see him and when they couldn't get me to steal anything, they said "Let's try drugs." I got up one morning and saw this bag labeled "Medical" perfectly centered on my driveway 5 feet out in the street. Since I figured I covered easily something like 40,000,000 feet in the years I was walking and riding my bicycle, I figured it was a police plant. I mean 10 miles a day is equal to 52800 feet and you take and multiply that by 350 days and you get to 40,000,000 feet after a few years. Also the cop made the mistake of parking upwind and the stench from the sty wafting towards me gave away his location. After I drove past him, he came and picked up the lure. I haven't been harassed the last 2 years though after I sent an online post to the local paper asking if there were any lawyers in town wanting to work on a percentage basis in a lawsuit against the city for harassment. I guess the one lawsuit they got pending for $25,000,000 for shooting an unarmed parolee is one lawsuit too many. They shot a guy whom the cop told to "Drop the knife." He had a pipe. They shot him like 13 times, 5 times after he hit the ground.

[dawnswidorski]

Thanks for this great personal perspective from a journalist coming to grips with diabetes in their own life. It certainly helps other individuals look at dealing with this chronic and life-threatening disease in a much more positive fashion. But, it's also important to note that Type 2 diabetes can be prevented with some relatively simple lifestyle changes including: weight loss, using MyPlate.gov as a guide for eating, portion control and physical activity.
Dawn Swidorski, Public Outreach Director - Defeat Diabetes Foundation
www.DefeatDiabetes.org

[dmhanco]

Mike,

Thank you for your nice note ... encouraging that you were able to get a handle on it so relatively quickly.

Cheers

David Hancock

[MikeMistele]

David,

Congratulations on the progress you've made.

I was diagnosed with Type 2 seven years ago, at age 40. The disease doesn't run in my family at all; in my case, it was undoubtedly self-inflicted, by 15 years of an office job, no exercise, and bad eating habits (including an average of six to eight cans of cola a day).

Through diet changes, oral meds, and regular walking, I was able to get my hemoglobin A1C number down from 8.8 (at the time of my diagnosis) to 5.9 within about a year and a half. Then, after a few years, I decided to move from walking to running, and that's made an even bigger difference -- my A1C is now in the low 5s, and my endocrinologist has been able to cut the dosage of my meds in half.

I still don't eat as many vegetables as I should (but I'm coming from a starting point of no veg whatsoever), and I do still love French fries far too much. ;-)

I've recognized that diabetes is never going to be something that I can disregard, but I've realized that my day-to-day choices will help me minimize the odds of complications down the line.

Keep up the good work!

Mike Mistele