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During which month were you (or your loved one) diagnosed with T1D?
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I can’t remember what month, but it for sure was during the school year. Therefore it was NOT June, July, nor August.
I think June, but it could have been May. I just remember the end of school was a week or two after my diagnosis.
What difference does this make??
Probably none. If enough people respond, I would suspect that the distribution of answers will be even across the 12 months. However, it is a question of curiosity and kind of fun to know.
I’m with PamK, what difference. I know I went in the Hospital on Mar 20, 1964 but that was when I couldn’t avoid self-diagnosing any longer, I had lost over 20% of my weight. I was just surprised my Parents hadn’t noticed. Dad was a LADA Dxed in 1940
I find people’s stories of their first diagnosis fascinating.
February, 1976.
I answered March which I believe is correct, but I was in the southern hemisphere at the time and don’t have any records from that time (1975); I’m certain it was early autumn, though.
July, 1977. Still very clear in my mind.
Like most of the others I don’t know the answer. I know it was winter so I’ve always used my birthday in February as marking another year – 65 years this February. I have another long term T1 friend who was diagnosed in May.
So happy to see another long term survivor! You go, girl!
Was a bit of a journey. Graduated from nursing school at 54. They diagnosed me with type 2. I knew that was absurd due to weight and no metabolic syndrome. 2 years later got LADA diagnosis. Was a relief. Now it made sense. But don’t remember the month.
March 1, 1971
But I had been sick for a 3 days prior, vomiting, lethargic, peeing every 5 minutes. I was at a lake cabin with friends and didn’t get hone until Sunday night. Monday am went straight to the doctor, who sent me straight to the hospital. We thought there might be something wrong with my kidneys since I was peeing so much. I list 20 pounds that weekend, and it took a month to be clear of ketones. I felt like death and never wanted to feel that way again so I never skipped a shot during my teenage and adult years. I was 15 at the time of diagnosis.
April 22 1962. Day before my mother’s birthday. She used to say it was the worst birthday present she ever got.
For me it was 8-28-1968. I know the exact date because I got my records about 8-9 years ago in preparation of providing proof to the Joslin 50 year medal people. I understand those who would say who cares about the exact date, but to me it represents another milestone, each time I pass that date I am thankful that I have cheated the undertaker for another year. T1D has tried to kill me many times- first by killing my beta cells, many times by severe low blood sugar reactions. In most of those situations, I survived by luck and the efforts of loved ones. I stand honored, humbled, determined, and defiant….
I like that phrase- cheated the undertaker. Better than I beat the devil!
My new fav T1D quote of the year: “I stand honored, humbled, determined, and defiant….” Well said!
I don’t remember if September 1991 had Labor Day the first or the second Monday, but my T1D was diagnosed in the first week of September 1991. I had been sick frequently the previous 6 to 10 months but every previous time seeing Doctors, they claimed I only had viral or bacterial infections, but I’m sure my T1D was fully established up to 6 months before it was correctly diagnosed!
When diagnosed, my body weight had dropped from 5 foot 11 inch tall 160 pounds to 5 foot 11 inches tall and only 112 pounds weight. Hospital lab equipment could ONLY register blood glucose up to 1600 and when my blood was tested, their lab equipment only said “HI!!!” meaning over 1600.
They said all the literature they had available said a Blood Acetone level of 2.5% was considered to be 100% FATAL with survival being IMPOSSIBLE, but when they did the arterial blood draw from my left wrist and tested my blood gasses and acetone levels, my blood acetone level was somewhere over 2.98% acetone so they said based on my blood glucose, I should have been admitted unconscious and immediately placed on life support equipment instead of having actually WALKED into the ER and remaining fully alert and responsive, but based on my Blood Acetone level at diagnosis it should have been completely IMPOSSIBLE for me to be getting admitted anywhere except for the MORGUE since my blood acetone level was nearly 0.5% higher than what was considered to be a 100% FATAL level with survival 100% impossible!!!
Just goes to show: one size does not fit all. And the more we think we know, the more we have to learn. Congrats to you for proving all those glorious stats WRONG!!
I am not sure but 6 mo after c section of my 2nd child but I think June. I never kept track of my anniversary and no one else cared either as I recall then
August 10th 1954 and I was 7yrs 3mo 21days old. I’m now 74+years old living with a pump and CGM!
I’ve gone from boiling urine with Benedict solution in a test tube to find out if I’m spilling sugar in my urine and having monthly fasting bgs, then using Clinitest tablets instead of having to boil the testube on the stove!!! (What a great improvement!)
After years of early morning trips to the hospital for fasting blood sugar testing, I got my first Glucometer! I was then able to check MY OWN BLOOD SUGAR!!! (TALK ABOUT AN IMPROVEMENT!!!😁!!!)
All this time insulin was changing too. I began with NPH-40 and regular, then NPH-80, and Lantus with fasting regular, and now I use NovoLog in my pump!
I’ve had a pump on and off for 20 years.
I now have a “closed-loop” system pump (an artificial pancreas) !!!! Diabetes care has come a long way, baby!
As a 40th birthday present, I was told I was diabetic. Five years later, after a summer in which I lost weight, peed a lot, and was thirsty all the time, I started 70/30 insulin in September after my A1C was something like 12. The GP told me a few months later, he had no idea what to do with me. His nurse overheard and sent me to an endocrinologist 85 miles away from where I live. None were closer. He became the head of the diabetes center at OHSU. I was lucky. He kept me alive.
It is amazing how many GPs don’t think to refer their diabetic patients to an endocrinologist, even while frankly admitting to having no expertise in the field.
Halloween 1955! Wish the CURE was here…
LOL I think the reason I still remember the month is that at my elementary school, May Day was a yearly big event, with a May Pole and group dances. I remember that my 3rd grade class wrote me letters in the hospital, and some mentioned that upcoming event, one mentioning that “your partner Rex is doing very well without you”. Who Rex was, and whether I got back in time I don’t remember, it was 1955. Memory is a funny thing.
November 1962. It took weeks to diagnose, since the GP refused to believe that a child could become a diabetic (too rare!).. His solution was to get mental counseling for my mother, a nurse, since she continued to insist that my symptoms were important. Finally he agreed to do a urine test on me, in order to prove his point.
Don’t know the month I was diagnosed in but it was 1961 by apparently a competent Dr. I wish I could remember his name. I am now just short of 70.
I’ve heard you tell this story before. I just have to shake me head. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.
I was told on my 10th birthday, 8/21/1962…could hardly walk into hospital…weight dropped to 47 lbs…I’m sure I’d been sick for quite awhile before diagnosis
My dad, a doctor, finally got me to take a blood test on his birthday, 3/6/1985, a month after I started complaining I was thirsty all the time. The blood test a few hours after lunch was over 400, He started me on oral meds right away. About 9 months later I needed to go on insulin. Besides remembering his birthday, I mark the anniversary of my diagnosis every year.
Early April, 1955
March 23 1961 was my younger brothers birthday and we gorged ourselves on cake and ice cream. A couple days later I had a bs over 800 and spent the next 10 days in the hospital. 1967 he was diagnosed T1 also, but unfortunately he died in 1992 from complications of T1.
It was 1951 and I was 4. That eliminates Jan, Feb, Mar and most of April. My mom at 97 is currently in the dementia unit of assisted living, so not much help there either. Hospitals in those days, except for Mayo’s and a few others, did not see record keeping, data, and documentation as necessary, treating medical care by metaphor as a “best practice.”
So I can construct a past or a future, but really have no place to go but the present.
So I do. Some talk with pejoration of the undertaker and the morgue. Me? I have a personal relationship with the grim reaper. I kick him in the shins every chance I get. And, boy, have I had profuse opportunities. He keeps lowering the scythe and I keep Darth-Vadering him. May the force be with you. (っ-̶●̃益●̶̃)っ ,︵‿
In the last part of February I noted in my journal that it was such a strange day – marking down all the liquids I’d consumed since getting up that morning until bed time. I knew something was ‘wrong’ but didn’t dare complain, as I was signed up to go on a school trip to Greece for March break. Spent most of that vacation drinking everything I could get my hands on, and taking something for nausea. By the time we arrived back home, my saliva and perspiration had stopped, I was sleeping, drinking, and using the washroom on a 1 hour repeat! Went to the doctor the day after returning – He told my Mom to get me down to “Emergency – I think she has diabetes”. Once at the hospital – I was diagnosed with T1D – It was March 1977! (But, if I’d spoken up sooner, perhaps it would have been in February instead that I was diagnosed, since it was quite clear, thanks to the journal notation, the actual day “it” hit!)
Diagnosed in March after a bad flu bug. It was the week after my birthday so it will be 45 years March 2022.
I was diagnosed May 1953. I was 4 years old. My regular doctor was out of town, so my mom took me to another doctor in our small town. He said I had a kidney infection (which I probably did). I didn’t get any better so we went to our regular doctor when he returned. He knew immediately and sent me to the hospital. After a few days there, he knew he didn’t know what to do to control my blood sugars. He and his nurse drove me and my mom to Memphis (a 150 miles away) to a specialist. Since then, I have not been in the hospital due to diabetes. I have been truly blessed!
April 1987. It was near the end of the month and it was the last Monday of the month, because my hospital stay extended into May.
April 3, 2008, eight days before my 24th birthday