I didn’t know how or what would inspire me to write about being type 1 diabetic but here we are. November is Diabetes Awareness Month and also happens to be my favorite month. I don’t identify as a diabetic social influencer because there is so much more to me than diabetes. Not knocking those who are super passionate about it and I actually rely on their expertise for many things. It’s just not who I am.

Many diabetics have a dia-versary. This is when they were diagnosed and for many, when their lives were turned upside down. I know exactly what led to my diagnosis and what was going on in my life to prompt the testing but I have absolutely no idea what the date was. You see, I was wrongly or misdiagnosed when I was 24 and then re-tested and confirmed as a type 1 diabetic when I was 26. So which would be my dia-versary?

My Diabetes Story

When I was 24, I thought I had a bladder infection because well, I couldn’t hold it and was going all the time! 😳 They did a simple blood sugar test, had me go for a carb loaded meal and come back after 2 hours to test me again. That is when they diagnosed me with type 2 diabetes. At the time I was overweight, eating terribly, not physically active and basically not taking care of myself. The diagnosis made sense. It sucked, not gonna lie.

I knew I was predisposed to it since both my grandfathers AND my father had type 2 diabetes. But I was 24 years old! Not 45. It hurt. I had always heard of fat old people getting the disease not a young person! It was time to make changes and in a hurry. I was also newly married and wanted to start a family in the near future. That’s when I started to make a change.

Slowly but surely changes were happening. I educated myself through nutrition classes offered by my insurance, got off the couch and changed my diet. Please don’t get me wrong, I am not a well-managed diabetic and I have no secret recipe. Over the course of 2 years, I was down about 40 pounds and in the best shape of my life. I also had better eating habits and was exercising. I LOVED my elliptical. But my diabetes wasn’t under control. In fact, it was getting worse. What am I doing wrong?!

During that time I was under extreme stress due to infertility. My husband (at the time) and I had no success conceiving in 2 years. This post is not about infertility so I’ll save those details for another post. Anyways, during a visit to my endocrinologist, she suspected that I had been misdiagnosed and asked me to re-test. So I did. Guess what? I tested positive for anti-bodies and that meant that I was actually latent onset type 1 diabetic.

What is latent onset diabetes?

This type of diabetes is also referred to as type 1.5 (one and a half). All that means is that you have type 1 diabetes but your pancreas waits longer to give up. Typically type 1 diabetics develop the disease during childhood. For more super interesting information on LADA (Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults) visit: Mayo Clinic.

Some believe that when you have type 1.5, you fall somewhere in between and thus have symptoms for both. Yay me! I get to be insulin-dependent AND insulin resistant. 😒 This was especially difficult during pregnancy. But I was able to conceive which is good news from the section above!

Pregnancy and Diabetes

Again, this is not about fertility but I digress.

Ugh. This was the absolute hardest part of pregnancy. I just could NOT get my numbers right. I was either too high (most of the time) or too low. Both were detrimental. It felt as if I was in a lose-lose situation. I’ll just say this, when it comes to caring for an expecting mom with diabetes, there is soooo much improvement needed when it comes to bedside manner.

Luckily everything was fine in the end. I did develop pre-ecclampsia and was induced. After going through 27 hours of labor, I had a cesarean. Baby girl was in the NICU for 4 days but everyone was healthy after that. More on that experience in another post.

Finding Support

I feel so grateful to have an endocrinologist who is also a type 1 diabetic. She gets it. She doesn’t shame me. We work together on improvement and action plans. I will forever be a work in progress, I like sweets too much. But with her help, I can manage my diabetes better.

Isn’t social media always a love/hate relationship? I have found so much support for diabetes on Facebook and Instagram. Its nice to see others going through the same things, sharing tips and tricks and educating folks on the disease as well as experiences with technology.

Final Thoughts

There is so much more I’d like to share about my experiences but will save those nuggets for another day. It is my hope to educate people about diabetes in a not so formal way. Happy Diabetes Awareness Month!

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