Pre diabetic?

Diabetes
1

In December, fasting blood work where I currently live (Hungary) to keep an eye on my high ALT and GGT turned up a slightly high fasting blood sugar of 6 mmol/l.

Advised to excercise and lose a bit of weight (173cm/76kg) and do a checkup in 6 months, I kept up my 2-3 times a week running and went on a 6 week low carb, low cal diet in January. Also bought a home glucose meter.

At the end of 6 weeks I had lost ~6 kg (70kg now) but suddenly started to develop severe night time dry mouth, thirst and need to urinate quite drequently and copiously, like a switch turned on in the 5th week of the diet. When I say severe my mouth feels parched and I still feel thirsty after drinking 2 glasses water. My fasting blood glucose in the morning is however consistently in the range 4.5-5.1 mmol/l.

Should I be concerned? General health, energy, appetite otherwise good.  I stopped the diet a week ago and am back on normal carbs and (slightly reduced, but normal) quantities. The thirst and dry mouth are however getting worse, the blood sugar in the morning remains around 5 mmol/l. Should I go back and bother the doctor now, or could this be a normal consequence of dieting that needs a few weeks to resolve?

2

I'm not saying you haven't got diabetes but with levels like yours I wouldn't be worrying, some diabetics would kill to have levels like that!!!  The "normal" blood sugar levels used to be said to be between 4 and 7 but a few years ago someone in the medical profession decided that normal was now between 4 and about 6.5, this helped to "catch" more diabetics which in my opinion was a  way of getting people to improve their diets and exercise regime by frightening them into thinking they were about to get, or now had diabetes.  I have had diabetes for 20 years and my sugar level on diagnosis was 22.  I diagnosed my sister with diabetes about ten years ago and her ONLY symptom was recurring thrush infections that wouldn't clear up no matter what the doctor told her to use.  Her sugar level was 9.   When my husband had a glucose tolerance test at the hospital the level they decide that you have diabetes is about 11 but he was OK.  My symptom when I was diagnosed was a raging thirst for a couple of days and perhaps, on reflection, my eyesight wasn't so good.

You say that you have a dry mouth at night, could this be because the air is too dry in the bedroom or that you breath through your mouth when you are asleep?  Maybe you are dehydrated or it's your diet causing it. With your levels it doesn't sound as if you have diabetes, wish my levels were that good.

3

Hello Simona, Thanks for your post.

A dry mouth and frequent urination are symptoms associated with diabetes, but can be symptomatic of anxiety.

Your HBA1c result indicated that you are pre-diabetic.

What you need to know is that being pre-diabetic does not necessarily mean that you will acquire the full-blown version of this insidious disease.

In the meanwhile you appear to have done the correct thing by taking exercise and losing weight.

In addition to this you should also be careful what you eat, and take note of the  advice that your doctor gave you when he diagnosed you as being pre-diabetic.

From what you say your BG readings are quite normal in the morning, so what I suspect is happening is that you are becoming anxious about your condition because you think it is worse than it actually is.

You should not worry, because as long as you keep to the general rules, which you are appear to be doing  there is little more that you or your doctor can do at this stage.

Full-blown diabetes is a lifelong condition, and it may never develop fully from the pre-daibetic state.

The other thing that you need to realise is that your doctor will be watching your pre-diabetic condition like a hawk, and if he/she thinks that it is developing into anything more serious will take any necessary action.

There is of course nothing to stop you in  the meanwhile returning to your doctor if you know that the condition has deteriorated, however there is a world of difference between THINKING it is deteriorating and KNOWING it is getting worse.

I suspect that your main problem at the moment is that you are worrying unnecessarily thus causing anxiety, and the fact that you have a BG meter endorses my view. At your stage ownership and use of a BG meter is discouraged by the medical profession simply because its use at this stage is unneccessary.

So in short Simona my advice (being a diabetic myself) is to stop worrying and just get on with your life.

4

I just lost 2.5 stone. At the beginning of losing the last stone, my weight was where it was at 30 years old, which was when I stopped smoking, 34 years ago. My urine became quite dark, and I put that down to toxins being released from the fat. So I just drank a lot of green tea or black coffee, and half a stone lighter the effect disappeared. I now weigh what at did at 20, before smoking very much. I have searched unsuccessfully for any scientific investigation into this effect.

Throughout the weight loss I exercised every day, but never enough to get into a sweat involving fluid loss. Perhaps you sweat a lot whilst running, becoming dehydrated, and your kidneys are signalling for more water in order to dilute toxins in the urine?