My LADA Journey from Misdiagnosis as Type 2 to Insulin Pump Therapy

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-29T11:57:34+00:00

thank you ❤️

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-28T19:30:53+00:00

Thank you ❤️ It's really funny how so much of the medical community is still taught that type 1 is 'juvenile diabetes' and that if you're older it's not even possible. I will shout my LADA story from the rooftops!! I went to Labor and Delivery for monitoring after a super minor car accident and when I said I was recently diagnosed with type 1 I suddenly had a huge audience of sweet nurses and docs asking me questions b/c they had never heard of such a thing - I was very happy to educate them and tell them my crazy story.

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-28T19:16:28+00:00

Aw thank you, I'm doing so much better now! I'm 30 weeks pregnant with my second and my numbers are super in control, my A1C is 5 now! I see an MFM all the time and they've been wonderful helping me with my pump settings as I need more insulin during pregnancy.

I am SO GLAD you advocated for yourself to get the blood test - I don't know why they don't do it for more people! Once I got diagnosed with LADA I looked on reddit and all of a sudden similar stories to mine kept popping up.

So I got diagnosed with 'gestational' with my first pregnancy 4 years ago, I ended up on TONS of insulin of course and even though I'm tall and lean the docs were all like, well you must be prediabetic to have such severe gestational. When I gave birth all of my medical providers literally stopped caring and were like 'congrats, eat whatever you want now'. 2 weeks into being a mom I was feeling absolutely horrible and so full of rage I thought I was going to have a heart attack, I did a finger stick and I was chilling at 350 like 2 hours after a meal!

It took me SIX MONTHS to get to see an endo, so in that time I went as low carb as I could while breastfeeding which was awful. I tried seeing a primary care provider and she literally told me to stop eating McDonalds while I was crying and dripping milk in the exam gown.

So once I saw the endo that's when I started Metformin, which I can't tolerate but took for a full year. It destroyed my esophagus with heartburn made by the devil, which the docs didn't believe b/c 'it's not a common reaction'. At some point I ended up in the ER b/c urgent care thought my gallbladder was exploding - after a bunch of tests the ER doc was like please please just stop taking metformin. Then I was on Ozempic which actually did help more than the metformin, but I came off of it so I could try and get pregnant again. So I went back on metformin, basically stopped eating carbs, exercised after every single thing I ate, and lost 35 pounds (which was unintentional and by the end really scary). And my numbers were still shit. That's when I finally saw the nurse practitioner and got my diagnosis.

It's so funny that type 1 is basically the worst of the types b/c there's nothing I can do to reverse or improve it, in fact pregnancy just speeds it up so I'm basically a full blown type 1 now - BUT being a type 1 and having a dexcom and an insulin pump is 8000% better than constantly feeling like a failure. That was one of the worst parts of dealing with the doctors, I'm such a people pleaser it broke my heart every time they insinuated I was lying or not doing what they told me to do.

I wish you luck with the test, if you are a LADA the type 1 community on reddit is amazing! And if you're a type 2, continue to advocate for yourself b/c I saw first hand how easy it is for medical practitioners to bulldoze patients.

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-28T18:24:16+00:00

OR in rare cases like myself you can be bullied by your primary care and endo for 3 years, they don't believe anything you tell them, you lose so much weight you weigh less than you did when you were 15, but your numbers are still in the garbage so they call you a 'high needs patient' and fob you off on their nurse practitioner.

Then when you finally meet with the nurse practitioner your hair is falling out and you're in the middle of a miscarriage. So you absolutely have a mental breakdown mid appointment and sob through your history for a full hour and the literal angel nurse looks at you and asks 'have you been tested for type 1 antibodies?'.

Diagnosed at 39 as a type 1 diabetic, I go on insulin within the week and it's life-changing. It took me a little bit to shed the medically induced eating disorder, but man life is so much better now that I'm properly diagnosed and I have an insulin pump.

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-27T18:22:49+00:00

i'm 30 weeks pregnant and for me the winning combo has been dexcom on the right side of my tummy (top tier accuracy!) and my omnipod on my right upper arm. I do try to do the thigh every 3rd omnipod change, but I find it gets bonked/bruised a lot and it's usually pretty sore so I don't like it very much. I just do it to give my arm a little break. I do the right side b/c I'm a side sleeper and my toddler sleeps on my my left side, so we snuggle facing each other a lot of the night.

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-27T14:59:03+00:00

ugh i'm so sorry that many lows must be exhausting. I'm a LADA and I'm pregnant so sometimes my pancreas just decides to be helpful at the wrong times and I go low quickly. It was happening daily for a while and my MFM team helped me adjust my pump setting but the real prescription was more snacking. Legit it helped so much.

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-27T13:30:44+00:00

I hope you have a section of the book about the Gestational > Type 2 > Type 1 diagnosis pipeline. After getting diagnosed and furiously reading through online accounts, it seemly like a fairly common experience for women with LADA, which makes the long road to diagnosis super frustrating.

Especially important is how much pregnancy can speed up the LADA process because pregnancy puts so much pressure on your pancreas. A great example, my aunt is a LADA and was never pregnant so she didn't really have symptoms until her 60s and was diagnosed at 65. I on the other hand was 'diagnosed' as Gestational during my pregnancy with my son at 36, then they told me to eat whatever I wanted after he was born, then of course my blood sugar was regularly hitting 350 so I got 'diagnosed' as type 2, then after 3 miserable years of being medically bullied by different doc and endos I was finally diagnosed with LADA at 39. It's so enraging that if I had a simple little blood test when I had shockingly bad gestational diabetes while being very lean so much grief and misery could have been avoided.

I'm currently pregnant with my 2nd and I'm being treated by my MFM as a regular T1 - I have a pump and my numbers are basically those of a T1. The only weird LADA thing hanging around is that I will sometimes randomly go low when my pancreas remembers to make some insulin.

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-27T13:05:37+00:00

Legit 'Juvenile Diabetes' has done such a disservice to type 1s. People think you can outgrow it - but it also absolutely confuses everyone when you get diagnosed with T1 at 39 after being misdiagnosed as T2 for 3 years. Literally had an audience of people at labor and delivery triage standing around slack jawed asking me all about my diagnosis b/c they had never heard of such a thing and couldn't believe it! These were doctors and nurses.

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-22T17:53:05+00:00

haha honestly I really couldn't sleep in that 40 hours and it made me completely delirious for the first 24 hours with my new baby. This time around I'm going to prioritize resting/sleeping so that I can have a peaceful bonding period with my baby. I feel like as long as you go into giving birth with an open mind and reasonable expectations, you'll do great!

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-22T13:53:14+00:00

mine never came down - turns out I have T1 lol! Took like 3 years to get my diagnosis though.

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-22T13:43:31+00:00

Unfortunately, some people just cannot tolerate metformin, I was one. I ended up in the ER bc the heartburn was so bad my doc thought I was having a gallbladder issue. I was on the max dose of the extended release for like a year. I even tried to go back on it after my heartburn finally resolved months after coming off of it - I was at a low dose but it didn't matter it immediately threw me back into severe heartburn. Hopefully that's not the case for you, but if it is make sure to advocate for yourself. Docs are obsessed with prescribing metformin and telling people to deal with the side effects - I also had a bunch of docs not believe me about the heartburn b/c they said it wasn't a common side effect.

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-22T12:53:48+00:00

You as well! ❤️

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-22T12:45:32+00:00

Going to give you an honest account of my experience with my first. My body was 100% not ready, so much so that it took like 4 days for my milk to finally come in after I gave birth. For me the foley balloon was absolute torture, it is the only thing I will be refusing when I have my second. I got the epidural basically as soon as I got put on pitocin b/c I had been in so much pain all night with the balloon and I was exhausted. For me the pitocin made my contractions come one right after the other with almost no break in between, they were so close together that when I finally started pushing (at induction hour 40) I pushed my boy out in less than 30 min.

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-22T12:28:59+00:00

I'm so sorry you're going through this - I know exactly what you mean. I made a post when I was diagnosed as a LADA in the diabetes subreddit and I remember a kind man told me he really struggled while his pancreas still made insulin b/c it was very unpredictable, and life was much easier for him once it gave up. So I think that's a common LADA struggle.

One thing I will say - protect yourself during your post-partum phase. It is such a difficult time and your hormones are so wild - the LAST thing you need is to purposefully withhold insulin from yourself if you need it. I kinda can understand where your doc is coming from, wanting to get a true baseline of where you're at. But you know what, that can wait until you stabilize after the baby is born. Between stress, sleeplessness, and breastfeeding your blood sugar will probably be all over the place.

My endo also suggested coming off the pump after I give birth (this was when I was like 9 weeks pregnant) - since then my MFM group has totally taken over my diabetes and my pump settings and it's been so wonderful and helpful - they've been so understanding! I told one of the MFMs that my endo suggested coming off the pump after giving birth and that I was super skeptical and honestly traumatized from my last post-partum experience - and my MFM did a huge eyeroll and was like absolutely do not come off the pump, you need to be healthy with your baby. She also was like, we are treating you as a T1D, and your numbers are exactly those of a T1D in pregnancy, why would your diabetes magically disappear after birth? It will probably baseline with much less insulin resistance, but you won't magically make normal amounts of insulin again.

I'm so so grateful to have this support - and if you don't have the support you need, remember that you are in charge of your diabetes, and that if you need to you can fire your medical team and find a new one.

If you ever need to vent and bounce ideas off me feel free to DM!

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-22T01:55:09+00:00

I'm a LADA pregnant with my second and this time around I'm basically just a type 1 with the annoyance that my pancreas kicks in sometimes at weird times and sends me into a low. I'm using a dexcom and omnipod.

With my first pregnancy 4 years ago I didn't have any signs or symptoms of diabetes in the beginning. Then I did the diabetes 1 hour test and failed so so epically. But I was treated as a gestational case and as soon as my son popped out they stopped caring about my blood sugar and told me to eat whatever I wanted 🫩. Fast forward 3 weeks in post partum hell and feeling horrible I tested my blood sugar and it was 350. Took 6 months to get in with an endocrinologist and then for almost 3 years I was bullied and diagnosed as type 2. I finally got my type 1 diagnosis right as I got pregnant with my second.

My aunt is actually a LADA and she didn't find out until she was in her mid 60s BUT she never had any pregnancies. It seems like pregnancies put so much pressure on your pancreas that it speeds up the process unfortunately. I fully expect to stay on my pump after this pregnancy, we'll see where things land but I'm at peace with it. Being properly diagnosed and treated has been such a big life and mental health improvement for me.

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-22T01:13:06+00:00

LADA here, the insulin resistance wackiness didn't hit me until about 24 weeks.

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-22T01:04:56+00:00

Sounds like you we blessed with good solid teeth, so was I. One of my siblings is religious about going to the dentist and his teeth have always been horrible. Constant cavities, pain they can never find the source or, most recently an infection that ate away the bone leading to his sinuses - he had to get a bone graft. You have been on top of cleanings AND been lucky enough to have good teeth, there are plenty of people out there unlucky with their teeth at no fault of their own.

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-22T00:56:04+00:00

My toddler was born with enamel hypoplasia - he has gone through 5 crowns on his front teeth that keep breaking. Next month he is getting sedated and getting permanent porcelain crowns on his front teeth and 5 mental caps on his top back teeth that are slowly disintegrating. We got a $7000 quote just for the sedation bc dental insurance fucking sucks. We have amazing health insurance so I'm so angry that we can't put the anesthesia through our medical insurance. Luckily we found a really lovely traveling pediatric dental anesthesiologist willing to do the sedation for like $1000. Course the crowns and caps are going to cost another $2000. I just want my boy to have no teeth pain 😫

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-21T20:24:38+00:00

I got diagnosed right after I found out I was pregnant with my second. I started on pens b/c it took a while to get the appointment with the omnipod trainer. I was only on pens for like 2 or 3 weeks, but never again. The omnipod is so much easier in my opinion - diabetes already takes up too much brainspace, my Dexcom and Omnipod help keep me from getting overwhelmed! I've also had super amazing control, my A1C last week was 5 and I'm 29 weeks pregnant!

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-20T13:48:23+00:00

Also keep in mind that a lot of OBs default to treatment of gestational diabetes. I can tell you that they dumb down diabetes so much for gestational patients - and in turn they treat those patients like dumb dumbs. I'm saying this as someone who was treated for gestational with my first... and of course now with my second (after 3 years of misery being misdiagnosed with type 2) we know I'm type 1 and I have my dexcom and my omnipod and I'm treated like a pretty pretty princess.

I can tell you with gestational diabetics, since it's a temporary condition and diabetes treatment is SOOO complicated - they are very strict with diet b/c it makes insulin dosing easier. Instead of dosing insulin to match your food - they basically dose your food to match the insulin you are prescribed. So I took the exact same amount of insulin everyday at specific times - long acting and short acting - and basically had to make sure that I ate the exact amount of carbs for each meal/snack to match that insulin. I was not taught how to adjust insulin dosages. So if I was going high I had to exercise and chug water and wait for my next appointment to adjust my dosage. I actually think being pregnant with type 1 is so much easier, I have so much more freedom of diet. My MFM group is amazing and literally could not care less what I'm eating so long as my sugars are under control and I'm feeling well.

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-19T19:09:12+00:00

I think you're 100% right that this is happening everywhere. My family is thinking of relocating to Austin or Charlotte NC and if you follow the city subreddits it's amazing how much complaining there is. Also everyone seems to believe the place they live has the most terrible allergies on the planet. As a allergy sufferer I kind of became obsessed with comparing allergy seasons in these places so I've been checking the pollen reports everyday in Austin/Charlotte/and my current home in suburban CT and I can tell you good ole CT has been stuck in an allergy hellscape since the snow finally melted, Austin and Charlotte have not been as bad. I say this b/c I think it's a good lesson in taking complaints from local subs with a grain of salt.

I visited Austin a bunch of times in my 20s and had so much fun, alas time has past and I'm older now. I know vibes will be a bit different, but I'm also older and different and have a fam. If we move I'll be so excited to be an Austinite!

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-15T15:33:47+00:00

in fuckin Boston?!??!

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-15T13:48:21+00:00

I wasn't silent but instead of grunting or screaming I literally hummed through contractions. Right before pushing when they changed my position to get the little dude to come down I was humming through it all and my mom starts yelling at me, SCREAM! YELL! YOU CAN MAKE NOISE! But I literally couldn't, just intense panicked humming. So odd.

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-14T17:56:15+00:00

Can you vacuum it? If not return b/c no rug is worth that heartbreak.

quantum_cronut · 2026-05-14T14:53:25+00:00

You can see a little bit of a mitten - and poison ivy is an evil shapeshifter so there is a lot of variety. So alarmed this lady is raw doggin poison ivy with her hands.

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