Do people with CF always get diabetes?
Not
always. Because our pancreas is a mess,
many CFers develop CF related diabetes (CFRD) which is different than Type 1 or
Type 2 diabetes. I don’t know the ins
and outs of any of the diabetes so I can’t really explain them. Similarly, many, if not all, post-transplant
patients develop diabetes because of the need to take prednisone constantly to
avoid rejecting the new lungs.
In
my case, a couple of years ago I was given an OGTT (oral glucose tolerance
test) which came back as positive for CFRD.
So I received my fun little test kit to test my sugars. Since then I have remained in the normal
range when doing finger sticks for the most part. I only ever require insulin shots when I am
on a prednisone burst/taper. I actually
tend to have more lows than highs and insulin could make this worse. Ironically, and I have no actual data to back
this up just me, the prevalence of lows has decreased significantly since I had
that large cyst removed from my pancreas in July. My A1C, which is the marker for your sugar
levels over the past couple of months, is only slightly higher than normal at
6.3, normal being 4.5-6. But my A1C has
gone up to 6.8. It fluctuates. At some point I will need to use insulin,
whether it is before or after I am transplanted, I won’t know.
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