Symptoms of Diabetes: So How Did You Find Out You Were a Diabetic?

I was at home for about a month from a class graduation trip to Cancun Mexico when I started to notice some weird things going on with my body. I pretty much wrote it off as an extended hangover for maybe the first week but it persisted and persisted some more until it finally could not be ignored.

Your body has quite a funny way of saying, listen up idiot!

This is what my body was saying to me.

Now listen, before I continue with my story, I want to say something. I’m not a doctor, don’t pretend to be, and so far have never even played one on TV. As you can see from my picture there’s probably not much chance of that either.

However, I do know a thing or two about diabetes so you may want to take my advice.

My advice is simple. If you think you might have diabetes go get checked. You don’t need to here my version of my symptoms to know that something screwy is going on with your body. Getting checked doesn’t hurt. You pee in a cup and get a blood test. Most simple thing in the world that just might save your life.

Just as well, if you have a family history of diabetes, considering it is a hereditary disease, then you should also be checked probably a couple of times a year. I would say at least twice, every six months. Your doctor may tell you differently, but it’s your body, your money, and your insurance. It can’t hurt.

My father had diabetes and his grandmother before that. I had a bulls-eye painted on my bottom side I guess.

There is another reason that I think you should get checked more often, and that is if you’re overweight. If you’re seriously overweight then you’re just pushing it, you know that. You’ve read a zillion times and you know you should get checked. Go do it! But even if you’re mildly overweight, then you owe it to yourself to just find out. Just in case.

In either case you should probably consider losing the extra pounds. Easier said than done I know. Not from first hand but believe me, if I had the genes to be pleasantly plump then I’m sure I would. I’m a junk food junky in the worst way, and by all means that’s what sped up the development of diabetes for me.

So that’s two strikes against me already. My genes and my bad habits.

So, no need to beat around the bush any longer with this. If you think you might be a diabetic then it’s worth getting checked out. If you have a family history, go get checked out. And if you’re overweight, well you know. You don’t need nor want symptoms if you don’t already have them; you have reason enough.

Okay, back to me, possibly my favorite subject.

So I was fresh off the plane from Cancun, seventeen, and really not wanting the party to end. So we did what any red blooded high school graduates would do(mine with a higher glucose content than most). We did our best to continue that party. It was a pretty good week or so I guess.

All of this partying, I think, did not help my case one bit.

It started with just feeling tired. Very tired, very fatigued, and extremely lethargic. No matter what I did I could not shake it.

It was only days later when I started waking up in the middle of the night, probably about five or six times to pee. And when I say pee, it was like Niagara Falls. And five or six times of that a night, well I wasn’t getting much sleep, so that led to more fatigue and lethargy. This symptom is actually called Polyuria.

What’s more, all the peeing led to being thirsty. Extremely thirsty.

Now most people when they get thirst they go get a drink of water, juice, or whatever and there satisfied. I was drinking Gatorade, and lots of it. I would drink the gallon jug of Gatorade in one night, and then when that was done fill the jug up with water and drink that. Plus, during the day would drink huge amounts of soda. Regular soda, not diet, so my blood sugar was going up and up and up.

It becomes a vicious cycle.

I was also continuously starving. Famished. Eating everything in site especially anything carby or sugary. Candy bars, cookies. Again the vicious cycle continued.

The last straw was probably when my vision began to get blurry. My blood sugar was high, and even now my vision gets blurry if I’m careless and let my sugar get too high.

All this went on progressively for about a week and a half. I couldn’t control it. In a way I think I knew. My father was a diabetic. I’ve seen insulin and syringes around the house since I was born. I saw some of the stuff my father went through with the complications, the low blood sugars and all. So, in my heart I guess I knew that more than likely that’s what it was with me. I did put it off longer than I should have but I just didn’t want to know.

I didn’t even really tell anybody either so it’s not like anyone could have said, hey stupid, go to the doctor.

So eventually I went on my own.

After drinking a gallon and a half of Gatorade and eating a Snickers Bar I went in to hear my doctor say, Welcome to the World of Diabetes. Oh joy!

My blood sugar was 640; I got admitted to the hospital for a four-day stay while they lowered my sugar slowly. Being in the hospital at seventeen, not being able to eat anything but ice and sugar free gelatin wasn’t the greatest experience ever but it saved my life.

Fatigue

Lethargy

Extreme Thirst

Extreme Hunger

Blurry Vision

Those were my symptoms because I kept putting things off. Don’t let yourself get that far. Besides, Gatorade is expensive these days.