I was diagnosed with diabetes more than two years ago, in September of 2008. On January of the very same year, I started losing weight, going from 75kg to 62kg in those 9 months. At that time I was going to my job by bike, and I thought that could be the reason for me getting so skinny. Of course, I didn’t know of all the other symptoms of my disease, so it never crossed my mind (at least until September) that I could have a chronic disease. Read the list below and memorize it, as it may prove useful in the future :P
- Weight loss
- Extreme thirst
- Frequent urination
- Extreme hunger (and I mean *really *extreme)
Weight loss
This is the most noticeabe symptom of diabetes, but also of other more serious diseases (like cancer). I realized I had lost too much weight when my swimming trunks kept falling off me while I was talking with a friend one day at the beach. As I have stated before, I lost 13kg in 9 months. I weigh 68kg nowadays, by the way.
Extreme thirst
If you find yourself waking up every night tons of times with your mouth dry you may have diabetes, and after eating something with plenty of carbohydrates (ie, pizza) it gets much worse. I actually remember one night getting up every single hour and going to the kitchen to get some water.
Frequent urination
Obviously, frequent urination is related to extreme thirst, but it is also the natural mechanism your body uses to try to get rid of the excese of glucose.
Extreme hunger
Let me show you what extreme hunger is by example:
- Eat two toasts of sliced bread with butter and honey and a glass of milk before going to work (7,30am)
- After getting to the office, eat another two toasts with butter and honey (9am)
- A bit later, eat a whole pack of biscuits (11am)
- It seems like lunch time never comes. You feel like starving to death (1,30pm)
- You are not able to make it from lunch to dinner without food, so you have to take another two toasts (6pm)
The most incredible thing about the extreme hunger is how you keep losing weight.