Interview 13

Age at Interview: 19

Sex: Male

Age at Diagnosis: 13

Background: Lives with parents and siblings and works part-time in the IT industry. Despite his symptoms, it took six months for the GP to diagnose his diabetes. The doctor kept telling him that it was stress.

Brief outline:Diagnosed in 2000 and initially his insulin regimen consisted of Lantus and NovoRapid. He found it difficult to manage his diabetes and his blood sugar levels fluctuated a lot between high and low. In retrospect says that he would have benefited from more one-to-one advice and guidance from a diabetes nurse or other specialist. He now has an Insulin Pump and says that his control has improved substantially. For him, managing diabetes well comes down to experience and having the necessary support and information.

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He felt thirsty for six months, lost lots of weight and felt very tired but says that at first his GP thought it was stress.



Ok how old were you when you were diagnosed with having diabetes?

I was thirteen.

What type of signs and symptoms did you have?

I was very thirsty. I had lost a lot of weight. And I felt very, very tired all the time and I really didn't feel as though I was up to doing anything, you know. I just wanted to be in bed or just sit on the sofa and not go out. And that probably lasted for about six months. Going to the doctor quite regularly but they didn't actually pick it up until one of the later visits where they did a, a urine test. And that's when they knew I was diabetic. And they, he telephoned us and basically said sort of pack your things and go get ready to go to the hospital. 

And that night me and my dad went to the hospital. And I was in there for about a week or so while they were obviously monitoring my blood sugar very regularly, sort of eight times a day, taking urine samples, and I felt a lot better very quickly.

And during those six months that you, that you kept going to the doctor what was the doctor's response and what were they saying to you?

They, I think they put it down to stress or something, something like that, and I think we were presenting with all the symptoms. We certainly let them know that I was very thirsty and they could see that I was obviously very, very skinny for my age. Unfortunately they just, they just missed it on quite a few occasions but I went to see a different, it was actually a different doctor's surgery and they picked it up on the first visit there. Did a urine test and then they said, 'Yeah it definitely is diabetes'.

What would you advise other young people that might have similar signs or symptoms like that?

I think if you think you've got diabetes bring it up with your doctor and say could it be diabetes? Because it may just be [sigh] they've had a hard day and they're not putting two and two together properly. If you bring it up and say is it diabetes, you know, if you really think it is say, 'Test me for it'. It's not difficult to test for at all.

A simple urine test can…?

A urine test will tell you definitely or I mean even a blood sugar test like I've just done would if it's very high it's going to tell you straight away it's diabetes.
Diabetes

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