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I agree with the majority of what everyone is saying here, but I also want to point out that Type 1 has developed in people as late in life as their early 30's. This happened to a friend of our family.
What they told us when our daughter developed Type 1 was that she probably had a virus and when her body went to fight it, it went too far by killing cells the body needs to make insulin. (It sounds very similar to what happened to you, Emily.) Since she has no insulin at all, she gives herself 4 shots of 2 different kinds of insulin a day and she pricks her fingers about 5 times a day to test her blood sugar. (This sounds like a big deal, but it is very routine at this point.) She was genetically predisposed to developing it, and it was really just a matter of time before it happened. She has always been thin and active, and we were told her weight and activity level had nothing to do with it coming on. We had instances of Type 2 diabetes on both mine and my husband's sides of the family although no Type 1. As a matter of fact there is a test that we were told we can have for our younger daughter to see if she is predisposed for Type 1 although we haven't decided yet if we are going to have the test.
If you have children and there is a family history of ANY kind of diabetes on both you and your spouse's sides of the family, you need to be alerted if your child experiences excessive thirst and urination, extreme weight loss, and periods of inchohesiveness and exhaustion.
As others have stated here, Type 2 can be brought on by poor eating habits and excessive weight or possibly just genetics. In this case the body does not stop producing insulin but instead the body becomes resistant to the insulin that is produced. That is why pills and not shots are generally enough to control it although, my dad is Type 2 and after 20 years of pills, he moved to shots. The effects and symptoms of Type 2 are essentially the same as Type 1 except that they may develop over a longer period of time. Unfortunately, the media has been reporting that more and more children are developing Type 2 when typically it has developed in middle age to elderly age groups. This is clearly a danger sign for our society!
My sister had gestational diabetes when she was pregnant with 2 of her children and it promptly went away in both cases as soon as she gave birth. But her doctor has told her that she is in danger of developing Type 2 if she does not take care of herself now through healthy diet and exercise.
Once you have diabetes in any form, eating right, exercising, and keeping your blood sugar in the proper range at all times becomes the key to long-term good health. You really have to be vigilant about it. A message for all of us to take out of this is that eating right and staying active is so much more important to us than simply how we look. It truly is a matter of health.
AOX, please update us after you go to the doctor. I hope it is not diabetes, but if it is, you are not alone, as you can see from the responses here.
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