Julia Schultz- (Edison) Doctors Don’t Know Everything

4. April 2009 by student.

I wanted to open up with a personal experience that has been going on for just over two years. I hope this helps someone. I was diagnosed with diabetes roughly two months ago. I have Type II Diabetes and it is a better case scenario that Type I but it still was a shock to my life.

I have always been in top physical condition throughout my life and have been involved in many sports. I was lucky enough to be able to eat whatever I wanted and never gain a pound due to my sports activities. After having a very harsh knee surgery at 17 due to a soccer injury I had to cut back on my running and joint stressful activities. Not much changed physically with my body as I continued to play soccer (with not as much intensity) and kept playing softball and swimming. But after I went to college I seemed to only go to the gym. Never gaining weight, I kept my exercise routine and noticed nothing wrong with my health.

About the age of 21 I started to gain a little weight, my little sister used to joke with me that my butt as getting bigger and I still thought nothing of it. I figured that I can’t always look like I did in high school and what was an extra 10 pounds. Well, over the next year or so 10 turned into 20 and 20 turned into 30. I was noticing that the weight gain was steady no matter how hard I worked out and said to myself that I needed to watch what I ate and keep going to the gym. I also notice that my hands and lower arms would “fall asleep” and go numb for no reason. My hair also started to fall out a little more than usual. So I finally went to the doctor and said that it was probably due to my birth control and that we should change it just to help control the extra weight. I was starting to get depressed because I have never gained weight in my life. I never had any problems controlling my appetite or even had to buy clothes based on how they fit, I was always the same size. This had all happened for about three years. I finally gave up and said that I guess that this is the size I was going to be and I roughly went from weighing 125 to 160 in three years.

Then things started to get worse. I would get sharp pains in my chest when I was stressed out or angry. I could not sleep at night and always getting up for water or to use the restroom. To make it worse I would wake up dripping with sweat. I thought that I was having intense dreams or that I needed to relieve some stress from work. My hair kept thinning out and I was starting to get worried. I had hair that almost touched my butt for years and finally had to cut 9 ½ inches from it because it started to look stringy. That was very upsetting that I changed my comfort level with myself because of something I had no control over. So I went to the doctor again and kept telling her my symptoms. More blood tests and more inconclusive results. I kept telling her something was wrong. I am not feeling right. Once again they said everything was normal. So I started investigating on my own. There were so many symptoms that I felt like a hypochondriac. I thought it was all in my head. So after looking into Polycystic Ovary Syndrome I went to my obgyn. She thought my symptoms point to that as well and we ran more blood work, sonograms etc. Again the tests did not show that had any problems. So thyroid, diabetes, polycystic ovary syndrome and several other things were ruled out. I became very depressed that no one could figure out what was wrong.

Finally a co-worker said to call her endocrinologist. I needed a referral from my primary doctor and they didn’t want to give me one at first. She kept telling me that they tested for everything that he would and they said nothing was wrong so I didn’t need the referral. I got very pushy and eventually received the referral. I went through another set of blood work for several hours. After one visit to him he said you have Type II Diabetes and have a high testosterone level. These things were tested for already and my primary doctors told me I was fine! How could this happen? I am supposed to trust my doctor’s opinion and now I have diabetes!

Just so everyone knows what can happen if you don’t treat diabetes you can go blind, lose toes, fingers, and arm or leg, go into a diabetic coma, have a heart attack, stroke, die etc. My new doctor told me that the diabetes caused my weight gain, numbness in my arms and hands and why I couldn’t sleep. I almost crashed my car because I stated falling asleep in the middle of the afternoon. All my symptoms that I have for all these years were due to the diabetes.

There is so much more I could tell everyone but I wanted to tell people that when you know something is wrong do not let a doctor tell you that you are fine. Keep going to another office or get a referral from someone you know. Keep fighting until you find out what is wrong! It could mean life and death.

I have lost over 20 pounds in just barely two months. I feel better than ever and even with the diabetes I feel like I can conquer this too. Please listen to your inner voice and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Doctors don’t know everything.

Julia Schultz- Edison

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