I was diagnosed over the summer with IR and borderline PCOS. I'm now on Avandia, which is commonly prescribed to diabetics. Everyone from my insurance company to my friends assumes, and some even argue with me, that being IR means that I'm diabetic. My doc says they are two different conditions.

Can anyone help me explain the difference? I'm getting frustrated trying to explain it to people.

According to the American Diabetes Association - no. It's not the same. But it increases your chances of developing diabetes.


This is from http://www.diabetes.org/uedocuments/...Resistance.pdf You might want to click the link and read more about it. It's a pdf file, so your Adobe Acrobat will launch so you can view it. You can even print it out if you need to.

In Canada, at least, they're keeping far closer tabs on any variations of blood sugar. Our measures are mmols or something like that ... normal is between 4 and 7. My friend was 7.1 and they quick shipped her off to a dietitian.
I think the alarmed response to even marginal variations is probably an attempt to head off 'what can come next' as sited in Suzanne's article.
If we can head diabetes off at the pass, so to speak, with small lifestyle tweaks we can save much suffering, infirmity, deaths ....

Suzanne-That quote is just what I needed, thanks. I've been reading up on the subject, but I needed a "short and sweet" explanation.

Susan- You're right about trying to head off diabetes. That's how I found the 3FC forum... I started making diet and lifestyle changes as soon as I was diagnosed.

Yes, no, sort of? I was put on Metformin for IR, and then at a later appointment, my doctor referred to my diabetes. I said, diabetes! I thought I only was Insulin Resistant?". Although my blood sugar hadn't been high enough (though it was close) to diagnose type II diabetes, there were enough other risk factors that my doctor said I should consider it "close enough." He explained it as IR and diabetes are different, but are on the same spectrum, and for some people (like me) the line is pretty thin.
I think some people get confused because IR with borderline blood sugar is sometimes called prediabetes.

Colleen

Colleen- you're right. My dad went 25 years thinking he had diabetes and he really had insulin resistance. His Dr called it pre-diabetic because of his blood sugar levels but he never went full-blown diabetic. He still treats himself as if he is, which is a good precaution. It's hard explaining IR to people!

Hi, everyone. My name is Eileen and I was diagnosed with Diabetes Type 2, and put on Metformin in February. My doctor said I was insulin resistant, so I just assumed that if you're IR then you're a diabetic also. Even on medication I don't feel any different than I have for nearly 20 years, and I feel that I should have been tested for diabetes many years ago. I don't understand why it wasn't done then as I've always been overweight and I would have thought my doctor would have wondered and had the tests done. I have since read that many doctors put these tests off since it costs so much to perform them. That's what our hospital insurance is for. I don't use my insurance foolishly and I expect it to help me. So now I go for bloodwork every three months and see my doctor a week or so later to get the results. I've lost 12 pounds since February, bought a treadmill and changed my diet. Now I've got to try and keep this weight off over the winter. Nice to be able to talk to others who are IR and/or diabetic too.

My doctor and nurse practitioner told me that, simplistically speaking, IR is when the pancreas keeps pumping out insulin to try and cope with spikes in blood sugar (or glucose...I might have that part confused), and it pumps out higher and higher amounts, but that diabetes is when the pump stops functioning.

My doctor was very strong in telling me "You are NOT diabetic" but he also told me if I didn't get the IR under control I would become diabetic in the next 5 years!