View Full Version : Worried about Diabetes
As I mentioned in a previous thread, I visited an optometrist today who told me he looked deeply into my eyes and noticed that the blood vessels in my eyes are structured a little differently - those in one are are straight and those in another are a bit twisted. He said it's probably of no concern but to get a test for iron, blood pressure and diabetes.
Now I am really worried I have diabetes. I had an incident 5 months ago in which I woke up with one blurry eye. It corrected itself by the end of the day, the drs. couldn't figure out what caused it (though I didn't have a diabetes test) and it has never happened again. But this incident combined with the fact that I have had 2 boys over 9 lbs. at birth (though apparently no diabetes then), sometimes have numb fingers and toes with the cold, sometimes have headaches, leg pain and had a string of bladder and yeast infections last year for a few months.... Now I am starting to freak myself out that maybe I do have diabetes and haven't realised it. I am a 37-yr.-old caucasion female, average build and moderately healthy, so that is not a big risk group for me although I did have the big babies. Does anyone have any experience with symptoms (or no symptoms at all)??
At 37 you're almost certainly too old for Type 1 diabetes to start showing itself, and still much younger than is normal for Type 2 diabetes, particularly if your BMI is normal (BMI calculator:http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/).
I admit I am only a medical student and not an optometrist but the remarks about your retina do not sound worrying at all. A diabetic patient might, over time, develop "diabetic retinopathy" which involves lots of change, not just in the pattern of blood vessels.
It is much more likely just the natural anatomy of your retina, that you were born with.
Diabetic retinopathy takes time to develop, you will have to have been diabetic for a little while before it had any affect on your eyes.
The same goes for your other concerns - cold hands and leg pain, you might be thinking diabetic neuropathy or peripheral vascular disease, but that also takes years to develop and is much more obvious with other associated symptoms, and not transient ones but ones that persist.
The two biggest flags for diabetes are polydipsia (drinking a lot) and polyuria (peeing a lot). You didn't mention either of those, and I have yet to hear of a diabetic patient without them.
When you get your glucose results back they will tell you flat out whether or not you have diabetes, and you have no reason to think that it won't be completely normal. Optometrists tend to get excited about every minute difference they see, afterall they spend every day looking at the same thing!
My BMI is 21. OMG thank you so much for your response - it was PERFECT and exactly what I needed to hear. Now I think I will actually be able to sleep tonight. I still wonder why I had that episode 5 mo. ago in which I woke up with one blurry/foggy eye which slowly corrected itself over the course of the day. I wanted to believe it was a dry cornea (I have dry eye and perhaps I slept with my eye a bit open?), but the optometrist said that would happen more than just once if it was the case. The dr. I saw at the time said it was a migraine in my eye. Now I am thinking it could have been anxiety? But in only one eye??
Ah I wouldn't worry about your eye, that could have been anything, that sort of thing happens to everyone now and again! Diabetic eye problems almost always affect only both eyes anyway :)
I hope that helps!
Oh and a BMI of 21 is literally perfect! :yesyes:
Do you mean diabetic problems only affect one or two eyes - didn't quite get that, sorry...?
Oops sorry, typo! I meant to say that yeah, diabetic retinopathy occurs in both eyes generally. But it's the sort of complication of diabetes that takes about 10 years to develop, it's not a presenting symptom.
Okay, thanks! In the meantime I went to my GP and she acted like she thought the optometrist's story was ridiculous. She said he isn't a real doctor and he didn't even dilate my pupils, so there is no way he could even see that far into my eye. I have been told I have eyes that are easy to see into w/o dilation.... I don't know what to think. I do remember that when I went to the 'eye ER', they only dilated the eye which was blurry so they never dilated the two. (Big sigh.) I just don't feel like worrying about this anymore!
No I think you should be worried about hypoglycemia. The low blood sugar of today is the diabetes of tomorrow.
Hypoglycemia is an ailment characterized by irrational behavior, emotional instability, distorted judgment, and nasty personality defects.
Some of the symptoms of hypoglycemia are:
Fatigue
Insomnia
Mental confusion
Nervousness
Panic/Anxiety
Mood swings
Faintness
Headaches
Depression
Phobias
Heart palpitations
A craving for sweets
Cold hands and feet
Forgetfulness
Dizziness
Blurred vision
Inner trembling
Outbursts of temper
Sudden hunger
Allergies
Crying spells
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