Teresa’s doubts about her diagnosis turned out to be correct. Common misdiagnosisĪfter her discharge from the hospital, Teresa’s daughter spoke with a physician acquaintance who recommended that Teresa contact the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center and ask for Robin Goland, MD, an adult endocrinologist and co-director of the center. “Nobody talked to me about, ‘What does this mean?’ ‘What do I eat?’ ‘What happens next?’ None of that,” she says. She was admitted to the hospital to bring her blood sugar to normal levels, diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and sent home with prescriptions for short- and long-acting insulin and a handout of instructions. With her sugar levels that high, Teresa was at risk of coma or death. In the ED, the physicians discovered her symptoms were a result of a dangerously high blood glucose (sugar) level-425-far above numbers considered normal (in the 100s). Although type 2 diabetes is due to a combination of defective insulin secretion and the body’s inability to appropriately respond to insulin, it is often associated with obesity and a sedentary lifestyle.
So when an emergency medicine physician suggested she might have type 2 diabetes, because her glucose levels had spiked, it didn’t make sense to her. Now in her 60s, she runs several miles a week, rows, and spins.
Throughout her life, Teresa kept physically fit, ate a healthy diet, and maintained a runner’s trim physique. Things felt “not right,” she says, and suspecting she might have COVID, she went to the emergency department of her local hospital. Teresa Fieldsell* had no idea anything was wrong with her health until one day last April, when she found herself unable to catch her breath while out for a walk.
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