Michelle Kowalski's Diagnosis Story

In February 2005 I was overweight and not very active. I wasn’t all that surprised when my doctor diagnosed me as pre-diabetic (based on a fasting blood sugar of 127 mg/dL). He said that although I wasn’t type 2 yet we were going to treat it as if I were. He started me on oral medication. I put myself on a strict diet, started exercising 6 days a week and began dropping weight quickly. In fact, between Februrary and December 2005 I lost 50 lb.

One of the side effects of the oral medication was increased fertility, and on April 1, 2005, I found out I was pregnant with my third child. Surprise!! Imagine the discussion I had with my husband that morning: “Sweetie do you know what day it is? Good. This is NOT an April Fool’s joke.”

I began seeing a certified diabetes educator, and we agreed based on the logs I kept that I was type 2. I started taking Lantus and later in my pregnancy added Novolog. When the baby was several months old I decided to see an endocrinologist instead of my primary care doctor so I could get the best diabetes care. There wasn’t much we could do while I was nursing the baby; so when I stopped nursing Dr. C and I took a fairly aggressive approach to my treatment.

I tried Lantus and orals, tried Byetta, tried Symlin, tried almost everything. What worked best for me was Lantus and Novolog. I had much better control and felt so much better overall. Dr. C suggested I was a candidate for an insulin pump since I was using multiple daily injections (MDI). I initially scoffed at the idea, but the more I thought about it the more I realized it was a great idea.

My insurance company required a c-peptide test before approving the pump. (C-peptide measures how much insulin your body makes on its own.) Turns out I barely make any insulin on my own! That was definitely a shocking diagnosis: finding out I was really type 1 after nearly three years of thinking I was a person with type 2.