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Comment by paulcole | Hacker News Reader

I was diagnosed as diabetic in my early 30s with an A1C of 13. I'm vegan and at the time weighed about 135 pounds (down from my normal weight of 165), ran 20-30 miles a week.

The doctors I saw immediately diagnosed me as Type 2 and treated with Metformin. Between that, starving myself, and exercising like a maniac I was able to keep my blood sugar roughly under control for another year or so.

Then everything really went to shit and additional tests were like, "Whoops, guess it was Type 1 after all."

With doctors having a hard time getting past their own biases and experience, it's no wonder the average person does, too.

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Somewhat similar story, (though I weighed a bit more). Went on a keto diet and got my blood sugar down to non-diabetic levels in three months (also lost a lot of weight).

But the type 2 diagnosis didn't feel right, and I pressed them for more testing, and found out that I was actually type 1. However, it's been four years now and I'm still not on insulin. Apparently the honeymoon period for adult onset type 1 is highly variable, and they don't have much data on it. So who knows when I'll have to go on insulin, but have felt pretty lucky so far.

The only downside to insulin for me is the cost and I'm pretty lucky. I buy my testing strips and pen needles from Amazon and spend $200 or so every few months when I need to restock. I signed up for a Lantus (slow-acting insulin once a day) discount card and am fortunate to pay nothing for it. Humalog (fast-acting insulin taken with food) costs $75-100 a month.

I go to the doctor every few months and demand free insulin samples when I'm there. I also got them to fill out paperwork saying I'm disabled (this is technically true by the letter of the law in the US). I used that to get a reduced fare bus pass and free entrance into National Parks. Figured I got fucked over and am going to milk what I can out of it.

Overall though it's not that bad. It's more of a hassle dealing with the routine than anything else.

Yeah, I also got misdiagnosed as T2 (at 23). Too many doctors still immediately jump to a T2 diagnosis if you're not a kid anymore. There's a reason we don't call it "child onset diabetes" anymore.

Same thing happened to my mom at 45. Only she was overweight, worked really hard to get to a healthy weight and get off insulin. And then had to go right back on it. She was devastated.

I actually love it. I was pretty close to suicide with how poorly I was feeling mentally and physically and how nothing I did "worked" no matter how hard I tried.

Since starting insulin I've gotten a bit better. Able to run and train more than ever, better mental clarity, eat like a more or less normal person, etc.

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