Hello. My wife recently went to the doctor, and while a definitive diagnosis of diabetes has not yet been made, it seems likely to come soon. Her fasting glucose was 300 and her A1C was 13. These are, to my knowledge, high numbers even for a diabetic. She is 32 and is in good health, for the most part. Since both she and I are young and tend to feel healthy, neither of us has felt a need to visit a doctor for a few years. However, my wife has experienced slow but steady unexplained weight loss over the last few years to the point that she is obviously has too low a body fat percentage, and that was the motivation for her to see the doctor (with a lot of encouragement from me and other family members). Besides the very high blood sugar, her triglycerides are high although not as shockingly high as blood sugar. She is also slightly above 200 on cholesterol and at the bottom end (40) on HDL. She has high hematocrit (about 54), high hemoglobin (about 18), and high red blood cell count. Her vitamin D is out of the range low. (She's already been prescribed vitamin D.) Her resting heart rate is 110-120 (as measured at the clinic) and her sleeping heart rate is about 90 (as measured by me). She sometimes suffers insomnia and often falls asleep on the sofa before a normal bed time although she sleeps well and normally more often than not. She has indigestion somewhat frequently although not all that frequently. Besides all this, she seems quite healthy and seems to have a decent immune system. She doesn't exercise a lot (although she suddenly seems a lot more interested now) but she performs pretty well when we play sports with friends that require constant running. She doesn't seem very irritable, especially for someone who has to put up with me all the time. Her paternal grandmother was diabetic. (FWIW, she was also my wife's only grandparent to live well into her 80's.) My wife's diet has, to this point, had a fair amount of sugar in it, but it's hardly worse than mine or most people I know, and I think my diet isn't very bad. I would not say she consumes an above average amount of sugary foods. She likes desserts, but doesn't have them more than a couple times a week, and she doesn't consume a lot of sugary drinks, including fruit juice. She drinks water much more than anything else.
Anyway, given that I'm both very curious about all this and very concerned about my wife's health, I was wondering...
1) How is it determined if diabetes is type 1 or type 2? I know the physiological difference between the two, but given that my wife is at an age where she could be getting type 1 late or type 2 early, I am curious to know how doctors determine whether or not she would be type 1 or type 2. Most of what I've found online isn't helpful at differentiating between type 1 and type 2 as far as how diabetes is diagnosed.
2) Are the specific characteristics of my wife's symptoms, situation, blood results, etc. similar to anyone else's at the time (or after) you found out you had diabetes? I realize diabetics may have much in common as far as how diabetes should be treated and controlled, but I am interested to hear from anyone who can relate to the specifics of my wife's situation. For instance, many diabetics need to avoid weight gain, but my wife needs to gain weight, at least at this point, while still controlling her blood sugar.
Thank you for your time and concern.
