No symptoms led to my diagnosis.  My clinicial just ordered a fasting BG
as part of routine annual check-up blood work.

HOWEVER -- I was experiencing one pronounced symptom that nobody could
figure out where it came from.  I was tired all the time and constantly
falling asleep.  Some weekends I'd nap all afternoon Saturday and
Sunday.  I hate to think what my BG readings must have been at those
times.  I had a *very* carb-heavy diet before my FBG came in just over
the line and I straightened up and started flying right.

Priscilla, T2, diag 01/03 with a FBG of 130; diet (low carb/low spike) &
exercise & Metformin; last A1c 5.6 (I think -- somewhere around there);
down 30 lbs from diag (was -40, but gained back 10)

===============================
Constantly thirsty.

Waking up several times a night to urinate.

Sores on legs that would not heal.

Tired all the time.

I'm a Type 1 but would like to add here that "blurry vision" is another
symptom that both Types can have.

Best,
Kurt

VERY hot all the time, with hot flashes.  Constant hunger,  general
"yucky" feeling.  Did NOT have polydipsia (intense thirst) or polyuria
(frequent peeing).

First:  Why do you ask?

Are you having symptoms that you cannot explain?

If so, you need to talk to your doctor now.

That being said.

The symptoms I had, which made it clear to me that I had diabetes were:

Extreme thirst
Extreme urination.

After diagnosis and some research I discovered that my persistant boils
were also a symptom.

Jennifer

Sleepy after meals, blurry vision, feeling swimmy sometimes, and
tinnitus got me to the doctor, but routine bloodwork determined I was
t2.  The symptoms abated when I got my BG under control.

Frequent peeing at night (but due to have TURP to fix prostate
Nothing else particularly noticeable
Before the TURP, hospital did a urine dip and said "!£$^&(), go and see GP
for a GTT". Did that and was dx'd T2.

None at all that I was aware of at the time. Diagnosed as a
result of complete blood tests for something completely
different, which was diagnosed just prior to the diabetes.

In hindsight, with the knowledge I have today, the dizzy
spells, vertigo, eye focus problems were all indicators. So
was the time I blacked out from a hypo. But none of those
ever led to diagnosis by the incompetent doc I had at that
time.

Cheers, Alan, T2, Australia.
d&e, metformin 2x500mg

constant hunger, fatigue

Michelle,
T2 spectrum

Really sick to my stomach.  Loss of balance.  Unable to walk.  That about
sums it up.

Not yet full blown T2 but on the path (IGT/RH) and trying to reverse
it.

My symptoms:
Either tired or hungry after eating a lot of carbs
Eating carbs or sweets would make me hungrier than if I hadn't eaten at
all
Not a lot of energy in general
Shakes in the middle of the night
Asthma, sinus, and gastric reflux problems (went away when I ditched
the carbs)
Periodic bowel uproar (alternating diarrhea/constipation) - also went
away when got rid of carbs

LQ

=======

In 1995-1996 I had *all* the symptoms of type 2 diabetes, plus it
showed up on 2 blood tests and on one urinalysis, but half a dozen
doctors all failed to diagnose and treat the diabetes because they all
assumed that my symptoms were my imagination.
When one doctor makes that assumption, later doctors tend to agree
without doing proper testing of their own.

I had to obtain copies of all my test results for that year and go
through them myself to discover that I had been developing diabetes at
a very fast rate for an entire year.
In one case, a doctor had actually noted "discuss with patient" next to
my blood glucose results, but he never did tell me about it.

I have had similar problems with doctors being too irresponsible /
ignorant to diagnose my sleep apnea and spine disease and
hemochromatosis and herniated disk year after year after year so that I
had to figure out the diagnoses myself and then spend year after year
pestering doctor after doctor until dignoses were finally obtained.
Then good luck on trying to get proper treatment after the diagnoses
are obtained.

- moshe (I'm not bitter :^)

I was IGT for 10  years before the full diagnosis.  I had no symptoms
that i noticed; the IGT showed up in my annual fasting bg test and was
brought to my attention by my very good GP.  She had earlier caught my
hypothyroid problem that my previous doc had ignored for at least 5
years as it gradually got worse. The full diagnosis again was the
result of an annual A1c and FBG test.  A good GP is worth gold; I found
mine by sheer luck in choosing a name from a list.

Susan Adair

Blurry vision and chest pains led to ER visit where blood work showed high
BG- kept in hospital overnight and fasting test next morning led to
diagnosis of Type 2- chest pains were just respiratory infection- minor but
thank goodness discovered diabetic

Exhaustion
Excessive night-time urination
Excessive thirst
Constant yeast infections
Persistent boils

FWIW, I thought these things were unrelated and went to the doctor
with the expectation of being diagnosed with many different things. I
had mistakenly though that increased urination would be 24/7, not just
during the night.  It was the exhaustion which finally caused me to go
to the doctor.

Even if you have only one or no symptoms, but suspect you may be
diabetic, GET TESTED NOW!  It may add years to your life to be
diagnosed early.
Beverly

Extreme fatigue, very extreme - to the point of pain
heavy perspiration
dry mouth
sharp jabbing pains in the feet
falling asleep after eating
blurry vision

No synptoms that I really associated with diabetes.

Had chest pains one day in 2004 that wouldn't go away - went to my
Doctor - blood tests taken. Called back 2 days later. BG was 12.8. I
was a diabetic. I was shocked. She told me not to be, according to
previous blood work, it had been coming on since 2002 (which I was not
told about !)

Then the severe and persistent boils I'd been having over the past 18
months started making sense - as did the fatigue (but no frequent
urination or excessive thirst). In 1999 I was tested and my BG was 4.5.
That's how fast it came on (well I think it was prettty damn fast) Go
figure. All the best.

Mike

Falling asleep after carby meals, tired, moody, waistline increasing,
episodes of blurred vision, constant neuropathy in both feet, episodes
of neuropathy in hands, angina, high blood pressure, heart attack. And
a diabetic mother as a risk factor. But doc kept saying "Your blood
sugar levels are still fine, no need to worry". Then I tested my BG
myself after my normal breakfast of a bowl of "diabetic-healthy" (ADA)
low-glycemic index wheat-free, fruit-free, and sugar-free muesli.  It
climbed to over 210. I took the graph to my doc. He agreed this
indicated diabetes.

So what about all those "your BG's are fine, no need to worry"? What
he meant was that my BG as tested hours after a meal in his office was
fine. Well of course it was, it had gone well down by then. And my
HbA1c was fine (5.6%). Well, of course it was -- I had already been
eating a "paleolithic" diet for two years, which means I had already
cut out all wheat products and was eating more protein and fats and
vegetables to compensate. Why was I doing that? Because I had already
discovered that eating bread, cake, and pasta made me feel ill, so I
had already shifted my diet in a low carbish direction before being
diagnosed. This concealed my developing diabetes from my doctor's
testing, quite apart from the very silly diagnostic criteria for
diabetes, which are partly a lottery (the "random" tests, which of
course aren't "random" at all if you have to travel to see your doc),
and the FBG, which for some T2s remains under diagnostic limits while
the undetected diabetes rampages destructively on.

The current diagnostic criteria for diabetes are rather like
diagnosing pregnancy when the waist measurement exceeds the bust
measurement.

Bloody lucky I happened to test my own BG after my usual "healthy"
breakfast. If I'd gone on relying on my doc's diagnostic criteria I
could well have had to wait another year or few until I was bad enough
to tip his scales. By which time I might have had another heart
attack.

A near constant vaginal itch that nearly drove me mad.  I must have
spent a small fortune on otc 'remedies' because I was sure it was a
yeast infection.  The intense itch finally got me to go to the doctor.
And the rest, as they say, is history.

BessieBee
T2

Howdy Tia,

Type 2 here, and there were no symptoms in my case.

In July of 2001 I went to the doctor because my allergies were kicking
up as they do every year, either in early spring or mid summer.  They
did all the normal tests, and the doc asked if I was diabetic, which I
said no, and he said he'd like to test for it anyway.

A1c at that time was 5.9, and my non fasting BS was 115 or (without
checking, not at home at the moment), and that was about 45 mins to an
hour after eating a burger and fries.

Nov of the same year (the day before Thanksgiving no less!), I had
just gotten new insurance and a new doctor, and went in for my first
full checkup and exam. This time it was a fasting BS (wanted a base
line for tests), and my A1c was 15.9, and the fasting BS I think at
the time was 259 (again I'd have to check).  No changes in eyesight
(same eye glass prescriptions for several years up to that point), no
extra thirst, no extra urination (still known as Mr Camel Bladder), no
explained tiredness.  

Now as soon as things started getting normalized, is when I started
having symptoms.  Blurry vision as my numbers went from the 300+ to
150-120-90 to 80 range. Only had a couple of weeks during that time
where I was peeing like a race horse, trying put out a fire!  ;-)

That's my type 2 dx story.