I am pre-diabetic, AC1 at 6.2 BS at 136. I am not overweight at all and do moderate exercise. I won the gene lottery. I stopped eating carbo. A few years ago, I stopped drinking coffee because of high blood pressure, and now no more pasta. Both my beverage and meal plans are very boring.
I still have pasta meals but it is a real treat these days and then only a tiny portion. I haven’t changed my diet significantly as my food choices were always pretty good but what I eat and when I eat and the portions have changed since the battle began and it will be for the rest of my life which can feel daunting if I think about it too much.
@Iglooo Did they catch the pre-diabetes in a regular check-up and screening?
Not sure how it came out. My doc sends all vital stats. I may have combed it through and noticed glucose level was high and brought it up with the doctor.
Amen to that, @poetsheart. You can do everything right - diet, exercise, whatever - and still have things go haywire. I have long stretches of time when everything clicks and my blood sugar readings are all great; then along comes a stretch when I’m doing the exact same things, and my morning readings will be crazy high. Same diet, same routines, but wildly different results. Sometimes it’s related to lack of sleep or stress, but sometimes there’s no reason whatsoever. It makes no sense.
I hope you are feeling better. I know what you mean about being fearful of what you eat – I feel the same way, and I hate it. I hate that constant internal monologue about food choices, carbs and lifestyle decisions.
Nobody in a world can be sure that they are not prediabetic, or not per-cancerous, or pre-heart-attack, or pre-stroke, or pre-whatever. I have a luxury of measuring my blood sugar on more or less consistent basis, which is about few time a month…because my H. is diabetic and he does it, so I joined him once in awhile. Everybody on my mother’s side died from diabetes which I still do not have, but I am sure that I will get it at some point of my life. My blood sugar is not only just normal, it is normal even right after I eat some sugary desert. The only thing that I am aware to keep it this way is to exercise on the regular basis, but it may stop working at some point of my life. Every family has something in their genetic make up. We have diabetes. It is not any worse or better than the next nasty thing. Practically nobody dies from the old age, vast majority die from one disease or another or as in most cases the nasty combo of them.
Pre diabetes is a term to describe glucose levels that are above normal but not high enough to be considered type II diabetes. Yes you CAN know you are pre diabetic. It doesn’t mean a normal condition that precedes a medical crisis. It is perhaps like being overweight but not obese. Then again, perhaps it’s also like having dysplasia, which is an abnormal change is cells that precedes some cancer diagnoses.
Bumping this up, because the article is relevant to the discussion of the condition… New guidelines for treatment of Type 2 diabetes - surgery instead of drugs for some patients is now recommended:
Well gastric surgery might work for overweight or obese people that are pre-diabetic or diabetic but that is just one group. Best hope for me is that I can be one of the first family members to stave it off until my 80s or beyond and watch carefully for any other possible related conditions, although I have low normal blood pressure and resting pulse right now at 60 but that could be related to my hypothyroid. My doc and I are shooting for “not til I’m 80” or “not at all”.
That’s precisely what the guidelines say - “for some patients”; i.e. those with BMI over 40 or with BMI over 30 who are unable to control blood sugar. Hope no one here ends up in the group!
I probably was born prediabetic as all members on my mother side, including my mother died from this disease and my younger brother has it. And although not blood related, I feel surrounded by it as my H. has it also and all of his family members on his father side, including his father died from it. How I would not be feeling as prediabetic? Of course, I do! My BMI is NOT over 30 though and my blood sugar is fine even right after I eat candy. I measure it on the regular basis as my H. has all the trinkets. Formal blood test also shows the normal level. But it will strike one day, I am sure about it. We are all doomed, if not one thing, then another, there is no escape.
Miami, a bit depressing?
Well, I know how Miami feels, if it runs in your family and you aren’t overweight it’s abit like the Sword of Damocles hanging over your head as you age.
Isn’t it putting it a bit heavy? As we grow older, we have to take better care of ourselves, not just diabetes. Teeth for example. I am pre-diabetic and made drastic changes to my diet. I didn’t think it a big deal.
Diabetes is not a big deal, it is a HUGE deal. It eats up all the organs, everything in your body and god forbid, but any little skin wound can turn into deadly septic infection which is mostly fatal for diabetic and which resulted in death of my mother and my FIL. I do not need to change my lifestyle at my old age, I have been exercising for 2-3 hours every day for decades and so is my H., which did not prevent him from having it, the fact that is well known to me. I do not get depressed over it, I cannot control it, so no point to focus on it, just another fact of my life. At the end, we all die from something, and this one is most likely will kill me, but it maybe something else. We do not live until what docs are saying the normal age of 120. So, we may as well assume that practically all of us will die from one disease or another, not because of old age. Do not ruin your day though, do not think about it, look outside, it is a sunny day here!! Anyway, nothing we can do…absolutely nothing…
@MiamiDAP a perforated colon can cause sepsis too. Very dangerous. Sounds like you have changed your mind about the need, and importance, of going to the Dr.
Am I incorrect in assuming that thin people are less likely to become type II diabetics? By thin, I don’t mean average, I mean BMI <20. Because I have plenty of other genetic things to worry about and am hoping this is one that I can simply watch for, but not freak out about!
No…you can’t assume that. You still can’t intake a lot of sugar or simple carbs. All you have to do is ask for a hemoglobin AIC test from your doctor and it will tell you what you need to know to alleviate worries.
Higher body fat (not necessarily weight, which can be muscle or bone) does correlate to type 2 diabetes. However, genetic variations can mean that some people have a very low threshold of body fat that they have to stay below to avoid becoming diabetic, so having your blood glucose and/or A1C checked every so often would be a more direct and accurate way of checking.
I am not fat by any measure. If anything, I am bony. I don’t eat many sweets and my A1C level is high. Genes.