Hi guys,

Hope you’re all well. As I mentioned in my last post, I was referred to the hospital by my diabetes nurse and I had the appointment last Thursday. Originally, I didn’t quite understand why I was being referred – my nurse mentioned that “there might be a third type of diabetes” – I can say that after this appointment, I’m pretty sure she was wrong.

I headed up to the hospital and they took my blood pressure, current blood sugar levels, weight and height. I then saw the specialist diabetes nurse who then explained that the reason why I was referred was because I wasn’t exhibiting classic diabetes symptoms. I have also been diagnosed with high blood pressure and she had asked if either had been fully investigated, which I was honest and said I had a bunch of tests done when I was about 18/19 but all I remember being told was that I had PCOS and when I wanted to try for kids, I should be re-referred back to them.

Having this appointment was actually really useful. Since my diagnosis about 4 years ago, I hadn’t actually had everything fully explained to me and what the tests were and what the preferred number ranges were and how I compared. After going through my health history (though they didn’t seem to have any details before my move in 2011, which is when I did all those tests – very reassuring!), she then explained that because I didn’t have all the symptoms and my results didn’t seem consistent, she thought that maybe I didn’t have full on diabetes – that it was possible that something else was causing my blood sugars to rise to look similar to it but that it was a symptom rather than the cause.

She then asked the endocrinology nurse to come see me and basically because I have had eczema since I was a baby and had been prescribed steroid cream (e.g. hydrocortisone, elocon) to help during flare ups and infections (more so when I was younger; I tend not to use them that often now), I may have something called Cushing’s Syndrome. This is basically a build up of cortisol in the body and my symptoms seemed more in line with that.

This made sense and so I’m going to be under investigation and hopefully will have a better idea if I’m affected by this or not in about a month or so. I have done a few blood tests and I have to do two 24 hour urine tests (not fun, I can tell you) and submit those to my GP this week. I will probably do a more detailed post on Cushing’s Syndrome as it is something that I hadn’t heard of until last week and on reading about it, it seems difficult to diagnose.

So all in all an eventful appointment. I have a follow up appointment with the diabetes nurse in January. She has asked me to do blood sugar readings twice a day (rather than just before I drive) so she can see how I’m doing as when I took the monitor in last week, the readings were a little sporadic. I was really nervous to go but I’m glad I did as the hospital nurse seemed to have a lot more time for me and was willing to go through everything I wasn’t sure of and reassuring me that what I was doing was right. It was a nice change from the blind panic of my annual check up at the doctor’s a couple of months ago.

So, until next time.. x