My Journey with Diabetes: A Developer’s Story

About six months ago, I found out I had diabetes. I had just turned 50, and the diagnosis hit me hard. I’d been seeing news about how diabetes is affecting younger and younger people these days, so I thought I’d share my personal experience. Keep in mind — I’m not a doctor, just someone who’s been through this. Please take this as reference only and always consult with your physician.

The Health Checkup

About two years ago, during a routine health screening, I was notified that my blood sugar levels were elevated and that I should visit a hospital for further examination. My fasting glucose was around 110 mg/dL, if I remember correctly. As a developer who sits in front of a monitor all day and enjoys drinking, I knew this day would come eventually — but it felt too soon, and I was worried.

But like most people… I was concerned, but I never actually went to the hospital. After worrying for a few days, I gradually forgot about it.

Looking back, if I had dealt with it properly then, I might have caught the diabetes early on. If you’re reading this, you’re probably suspicious or worried about your own health. If that’s the case, please don’t put it off. Just go to the hospital and get your HbA1c tested. It’s that simple.

Physical Symptoms

Then, about six months ago, I started noticing something was definitely wrong with my body. (These are my personal symptoms — they may not be universal.)

Frequent leg cramps
I wasn’t particularly active and barely exercised, yet I kept waking up with leg cramps in the middle of the night. I later learned that high blood sugar causes osmotic diuresis, which leads to loss of fluids and electrolytes, making cramps more likely.

Tingling and numbness in my fingertips
As someone who codes for a living, I’m constantly typing on a keyboard. I’d never experienced this before, but suddenly my fingertips started tingling. It wasn’t painful, but I could definitely tell something was wrong. This turned out to be diabetic peripheral neuropathy — symptoms like tingling, stinging, burning, or numbness that gradually start and tend to worsen at night. Usually it starts in the feet and moves up to the hands, but in some cases, hand symptoms appear first.

Waking up exactly 2 hours after falling asleep to use the bathroom
I’m not sure exactly when this started, but looking back after I became aware of it, I realized I was waking up like clockwork every 2 hours to go to the bathroom. It was worse after drinking. This really disrupted my sleep, which was already difficult. Apparently, when blood sugar is high and glucose leaks into the urine (poor diabetes control), it causes osmotic diuresis. What’s weird is how precisely it was every 2 hours.

Frequent thirst, hunger, and craving sweets
I’m a smoker, and I normally never snack or eat between meals. But at some point, I started craving sweet things — especially orange juice. I was drinking a lot of water too. When I felt hungry, I couldn’t control it anymore. I usually handled hunger pretty well, but suddenly I just couldn’t.

Weight loss
This was the final symptom after all the warning signs. I lost about 13 kg in roughly two weeks. You could feel it physically — my belly fat disappeared, and you could clearly see the loss in my thighs and arms. This happens when you’re insulin-deficient or have insulin resistance, and glucose can’t be delivered to muscle and fat cells. The cells starve (can’t use the energy), the body dumps sugar (in urine), and then burns fat and muscle, leading to weight loss. That’s when I knew I was in serious trouble and needed to see a doctor.

Major Symptoms of Diabetes

Folk Remedies

The symptoms I mentioned (except the weight loss) appeared gradually over several months. Even after I suspected it was diabetes, I didn’t go to the hospital right away. Looking back, it was foolish, but I think I felt like once I got diagnosed, I’d be stuck living as a diabetic patient forever. So like an idiot, I looked for folk remedies.

I tried boiling and drinking bitter melon (which people said was good for diabetes), exercised for 30 minutes after meals, cut down on alcohol… But as I later learned, medication solves everything. You don’t need to suffer. Once you take the meds, your blood sugar returns to normal right away.

Alcohol

Honestly, the biggest reason I avoided going to the hospital was probably the fear that I wouldn’t be able to drink anymore. The thought that my family would find out I had diabetes and I’d have to quit drinking — that was probably the main reason I delayed going.

This varies depending on the medication you take and your age, so it’s not absolute — please be careful. To cut to the chase: I am currently drinking while taking medication. Obviously, not drinking would be ideal, and my doctor tells me to limit alcohol.

When you drink, your liver prioritizes breaking down alcohol over glucose, which can cause hypoglycemia. In other words, diabetes medication already lowers your blood sugar, and when alcohol enters the system, it further blocks glucose absorption, which can lead to dangerously low blood sugar. You must be cautious.

I’ll write about this in more detail later, but if you must drink, skip your evening medication or drink with a meal. And in the early stages, definitely check your blood sugar 2–3 hours after drinking to see how much it drops. And you can’t drink the same amount as before. Unfortunately, you’ll have to cut back.

I’m mentioning alcohol first because I think managing diabetes with medication while drinking is better than hesitating to go to the hospital because of alcohol concerns. I figured people my age might hesitate for the same reason I did, so I wanted to address it upfront.

If you’re looking for an app to manage your blood sugar and blood pressure, I recommend checking out the “Medical Check App” (it offers 20 free uses per month).

Test Results

The sudden weight loss made me feel a sense of crisis, and I finally went to the hospital for testing. The tests were simple — a blood test and an HbA1c test. The blood test checks other markers to see if diabetes complications have affected other parts of the body.

The results were shocking.
My blood glucose level was 339 mg/dL. Normal is <100 mg/dL.
My HbA1c was 11.4%. Normal is <5.7%.

The numbers were very high — which explains the weight loss. But fortunately, because I went to the hospital relatively quickly, my kidney and liver values were fine. Oh, and I also had high blood pressure, so I was prescribed blood pressure medication as well.

After taking the medication, my levels started dropping in 2–3 days, and within about a week, they were back to nearly normal.

While taking medication, you can eat normally — you don’t need to follow a special diet or strict meal plan. (This applies to general cases, not severe or extreme situations.)

Once I started the medication, I regretted not going earlier and managing it sooner. As you probably know, when you have diabetes, your thick, sugary blood circulates through your body and stresses all your organs. That’s why diabetes complications are so dangerous.

Don’t be ignorant like me, looking for folk remedies or worrying about alcohol. Get diagnosed, take your medication, and manage it properly. Unless it’s severe, you can recover to almost normal levels.

I’d heard a lot about diabetes from the media and people around me, but actually experiencing it showed me that some things were wrong or that I had misunderstood certain things. That’s why I wrote this in detail.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably debating whether to go to the hospital, just like I was. Let me be blunt: Just go to the hospital and get checked first. It takes about 30 minutes, and all your worries and concerns will disappear.

Stay healthy, everyone.

This essay was originally published on Medium and migrated to KanApp Blog.