Health and paranoia

[sobrique]

Well, I've been feeling a bit bleugh for a while. On a few occasions at work, or other places just feeling defocussed and weary. And thirsty.
Now, I wasn't quite sure if it was a problem or not, since ... well, I'm not exactly the fittest and healthiest person out there, and could easily see that as just me being lazy, and not eating very well.

But anyway, something someone mentioned lead me to think in terms of diabetes.
Risk factors and symptoms include being overweight, thirsty, frequent urination, excessive hunger, fatigue and weariness. I can check off most of these.

Oh and with added risk factors of 'family history'.

But just to see if I was being silly or not, grabbed a blood test thingy online, that measure blood sugar levels. This morning, it was 8 mmol/l. Which is higher than it should be. Basically, >6 mmol/L is a bad sign.

Now, obviously, a home test and some self diagnosis isn't by any means conclusive, but I think I shall be making doctor's appointment in the near future. There's enough of the risk factors there, that proper medical advice is definitely in order.

Edit: There's the added complication that I'm down in London at the moment, on training, this week and next. Doctor appointments are a challenge.

Comments

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

That doesn't sound like paranoia, that sounds like a very sensible course of action to take. Please try to get the doctor to see you asap.

[ash1977law.livejournal.com]

If you have a walk-in-NHS centre nearby you should visit there this very lunchtime, and get yourself checked out. Go at once with all due haste, do not pass go, do not collect £200. I command it.

It's a wise course of action.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

Hmm, good point. I was concerned about complications based around me being in london on training, and my GP being in Coventry. However there's got to be an NHS drop in centre somewhere around here...

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

Hmm, Charing Cross. Me in Brentford. Not a lunchtime trip, but it's open until 10. So I'll mooch over that way later I think.

[jacks2k.livejournal.com]

I hope everything turns out ok.

[pinkzhazha.livejournal.com]

Doctors, Now.

[mister-jack.livejournal.com]

Bummer, man. Good luck with the doctory folk.

[nakedsamuraiguy.livejournal.com]

Lloyds pharmacy do a free Diabetes check thing, as I have had the diabetes scare myself

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

Ah, interesting. Is it anything more complicated than a blood sugar test?

[ehrine.livejournal.com]

http://www.lloydspharmacy.com/home-page/health_updates/diabetes_health/diabetes_help.htm

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

Dropped by last night, they were kinda busy. I'll bimble over to an NHS dropin centre tonight, to see what they say.

[pink-mouse.livejournal.com]

They _should_ have offered it to anyone who asked. If I were still covering that area, I'd have had something to say to the manager... Not a good advert for the company that I work for. :-(

[portilis.livejournal.com]

Sounds extremely sensible to me!

Are you going to still be in London this weekend, or are you fleeing back northwards?

If you're around, I shall be heading up on saturday morning or friday evening and it'd be good to catch up. Haven't seen you in ages.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

I'll be headed back on friday I'm afraid.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Dude. Well, slow release carbs are a good plan until you can get to a doctor. Suxxor.

[forest-rose.livejournal.com]

Get thee to a doctor, my dear. Considering your relatively youthful age, diabetes is a worrying thing and _needs_ to be controlled ASAP. NHS walk-in centre is a good plan, but really, you need to get an appointment with your GP soon.
As you're in London, you can go to any GP and ask to be seen as a temporary resident. All you need to do is fill in a short form (takes 5 minutes, you can do it in the waiting room) and they will see you and pass on any findings to your regular doctor. You can get a number of a local surgery from NHS Direct - 0845 46 47 (yes, that's the right number, it's just oddly short). Go and do so. Consider yourself nagged ;-)

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

You're entirely correct, and I shall be bugging my training instructor for an indication on finish time on friday. If it's early enough, I'll try and make an appointment, since I'm back down this way next week too :/

[purp1e-magic.livejournal.com]

If diabetes runs in your family, any signs are worth checking out. I also have very high risk factors, and I've been checked a few times for various reasons. Also, now and then my dad will do the finger-prick test on his machine for my brother or myself.

As well as doing a finger-prick test and checking your waters for glucose and proteins, they may offer a glucose tolerance test.

If there's family history of other things, you might as well get them checked out at the same time. The one that springs to mind is cholesterol levels.

So far as I know, it's quite rare to develop type 2 diabetes before about 35-40. But they should be able to give you good guidance for how to reduce the risks of developing it later on.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

I have a sibling with type 1, and a parent with type 2 :)
*shrug* worst they'll do it tell me there's nothing to worry about. (Although I may well go see my GP about it anyway)

[stgpcm.livejournal.com]

there's no great rush, so it can wait a couple of weeks while you get to see the doctor, then take the 3 month average blood sugar test, then wait for the results. In the mean time cut down on sugary stuff, learn to love 17p bottles of supermarket sparkling tap water, and all that other stuff we should all be doing anyway...

[jorune.livejournal.com]

Hope your tests work out well Ed, cut out any sugary treats you may having during the hotel/training times.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

I go through evian, like it was water :).

But I figured that the reading I had was only a little outside the 'normal area'. And I've been noticing it for a while now. *shrug* I'll make a point of trying to get to the NHS drop-in centre anyway, since it won't hurt, and hey, there's not much to do in hotels anyway :)