WOMAN, 21, TOLD HER DOCTOR ABOUT DIABETES SYMPTOMS. HIS RESPONSE WAS 'BAFFLING'

Caitlin Martin had just turned 21 when she started noticing some odd symptoms.

She was working in a dental lab at the time, making molds for teeth. When she started feeling extra thirsty during the day, she assumed it was because she’d been spending so much time around the dry air and clay in the room.

“Then it was getting to the point where I was not able to sleep throughout the night,” Martin, now 33, of Garfield, New Jersey, tells TODAY.com. “I would have to go to the bathroom one or two times (during the night), which was totally unlike me.”

She was also unintentionally losing weight.

“I was kind of trying to diet, but fell off the bandwagon. So I was eating like I normally would, but I was still losing weight,” Martin recalls.

After looking up her symptoms — increased thirst, increased urination and weight loss — online, Martin saw that everything pointed in the direction of diabetes.

On a Whim, She Used Her Sister’s Glucose Monitor

Confused and a little scared, Martin called her mom, who urged her to go to the doctor, but she decided to wait.

About a month later, her family held a pre-Fourth of July gathering. “We’re all outside eating fruit and I’m drinking soda, and I’m going to the bathroom so many times,” Martin recalls.

Her half-sister, who is pre-diabetic, was there too. And Martin asked if she could test herself using her sister’s glucose monitor.

“So I tested myself, and it read so high it didn’t even read on the meter,” she says. “We’re just sitting there, super quiet. And so my sister was like, ‘You know you have diabetes, right?’”

Still, Her Doctor Was Initially Dismissive

The following Monday, Martin went to see her general practitioner, who was skeptical.

“He looked at me like I was crazy,” even after she told him about her symptoms and her results on the glucose monitor, she says.

She understood that at 21 and a normal weight that she might not necessarily ring any alarm bells for a doctor. But Martin was also “baffled” that her doctor didn’t seem more concerned or even take her glucose measurements right there in the office.

“He just was so nonchalant about it,” she says. “I was just like, is he not worried that something’s going to happen?” Martin knew that people with uncontrolled diabetes can end up with serious, even life-threatening complications.

But her doctor did request additional lab work, which revealed that she did, in fact, have Type 1 diabetes.

Once her results came back, she was connected with an endocrinologist.

Learning to Live With Diabetes

Although we often think of Type 1 diabetes as a condition that’s usually diagnosed in childhood, more than half of all new Type 1 cases occur in adults, recent research shows. And, globally, more than 60% of cases develop after age 20, according to some estimates. The exact cause of Type 1 diabetes is unknown, but “exposure to viruses and environmental factors” could play a role, according to Cleveland Clinic.

Looking back, Martin is a little sad that she only got three months to enjoy fruity cocktails after turning 21 before her diagnosis. But it’s been over a decade now, and she’s learned to live with her diabetes.

“It’s definitely been a learning curve, but honestly, I feel like it’s made me a stronger person,” says Martin, who now works as a supervisory vet technician at an animal hospital. “I feel like I’m more in-tune with my body,” she adds.

She has to be more careful about what she eats at every meal and more aware of what’s in common foods, like orange juice. Martin uses a continuous glucose monitor to stay on top of how her body is reacting, which is especially helpful when she’s out hiking alone.

But she also knows that it’s OK to have fun foods, like pizza or birthday cake once in a while, because she knows how to handle it. “I just do a little bit of extra insulin, or maybe do a little bit more cardio at the gym later on that day,” she says.

Martin has also found that her monthly hormonal cycles play a role in how her body reacts, particularly the week before her period. “That week, it’s almost like insulin is water, which is rough because it’s when I’m the most hungry,” she says.

But it’s all part of how she’s been able to adapt and work with her diabetes. To anyone who’s newly diagnosed, she says, “don’t think your life has ended, because it hasn’t.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com

2026-06-08T12:11:31Z