Very worried about diabetes at 23

[ChiefsCML]

Hello all, this is my first post here. I’m sorry for the text wall ahead of time, but i really need someone that is willing to read and help talk to me. It’s been a dark couple of days, and I’m extremely worried about my health. I’m a 23 year old white male (I only say white bc of certain diabetes risk factors). Over the past year, I’ve put in about 50 pounds. I put on the weight after going through a really rough breakup and lots of things in life piling on at once and sending me into some depression. I’m 5’10 and weigh 214 pounds with a 30.6 BMI and a 42 inch waist. I have always been very sedentary even when at a healthy weight. I just have never really exercised until the past week.

All through childhood i was thin as a rail, and my high school weight was in the 140s. After I graduated from high school, I became a bit depressed and gained about 50 pounds over a year as well. I weighed 195 at the peak before I lost the weight relatively quickly and went down to 165, my ideal weight I’d say. I stayed at 165 for about 8 or 9 months, then I went through my breakup and lost control. Over the past year since about August or September of 2016, I’ve binge eaten quite a lot, eaten tons of fast food, and absolutely shown no restraint when I smoke marijuana and get the munchies. It is embarrassing to say, but there were 3 or 4 mornings I would have severe nausea and indigestion due to how I ate the night before. One morning I even threw up and felt ill all morning. I’m not proud of that.

Anyways, around 4 months ago I started noticing pins and needles in my left foot after I had tightness and pain in Achilles for a month or so. Since then it has gotten slowly progressively worse. Now I have burning in my feet sometimes and what feels like someone pinching my heel very hard. It only happens when I sit down it seems, or when I’m driving, which I do for a living. Not when I’m in bed or anything either. It also does happen in both feet, but mostly my left, and it really only happens in my right when driving. When my hypochondriac nature kicked in and I started researching my foot thing, and I saw diabetes is the number one cause of this neuropathy, if that is what I have. Both of my grandfathers had diabetes, and one took such bad care of himself that he died in his 50s, so I was immediately freaked out.

Then I noticed that when I pee, there are small bubbles that don’t seem to pop or go away on their own. Maybe about 3 small patches of tiny, millimeter bubbles (guesstimating). I read online that this can be protein in urine and can be a symptom of, you guessed it, diabetes. I haven’t had my blood sugar tested, but I have measured my own blood pressure, and it comes in at 124/88 which is higher than ideal.

One thing that gives me hope it’s not necessarily diabetes is that I thought of the neuropathy as a smoking gun and was SURE I had type 2, until I read that in the vast majority of patients, neuropathy does not develop immediately. Now maybe I started getting diabetes when I went to 195 pounds, but to be honest I felt vital and very healthy when I was at 165, and had no problems. In my head it’s very unlikely I could have had diabetes for more than a year max at this point, though I could be wrong. That gives me hope that the neuropathy is maybe unrelated, but I’m still freaking out.

I’m doing a blood sugar test with a kit later today, and my parents both are confidently reassuring me and saying I’m just in my own head. They seem very sure that I don’t have diabetes and if I lose the weight my problems will subside. I really hope so.

I can climb the mountain of being healthy with diabetes, I know I can, but I just don’t want this disease in my 20s. I want to feel 23, not 40 anymore. I want to be able to get in healthy shape with normal healthy eating and exercise, not with the complication of my blood sugar being all over the place. I’ve been in a very dark place this past couple days because of this, and I’m just really freaked out.

Any perspective would be really appreciated. Be honest, do you think I should be worried? Thanks to all.