One of the challenges of dealing with diabetes is our tendency to ascribe a number of aches, pains, and other medical troubles to our elevated (or wildly-swinging) blood glucose levels. Whether it be unexpected fatigue or snippiness, blurred vision, a perceived increase in thirst or change in urinary frequency, and we start thinking "highs, lows, and complications".

For many of us, numbness in one or more toes is an early sign of diabetic neuropathy. Even if it's "only when they are cold", and there is visual evidence of decreased peripheral circulation -- both of which disappear when moving into a warmer environment. (That's my story, and the labs will back me up on it. We're still not sure if it's really the diabetes that's behind it, but we haven't been able to find any other explanation. But I digress. This story is not about me.) This being the case, some ongoing numbness in The Other Half's big toe was considered a result of his type 2 diabetes.

Until this past weekend.

The weekend before last, we stayed overnight in Queens as my sister and I needed to look at short-term residential facilities for Mom's release to cardiac rehabilitation.

I should note that The Other Half has a history of gout and of osteoarthritis (the "wear-and-tear" type, not the autoimmune type) in addition to his diabetes. Sleeping in an unfamiliar bed can spell discomfort for several days going forward -- as can traipsing a heavy computer backpack around a labyrinthine hospital facility -- so we chalked up The Other Half's discomfort to a combination of weather, diabetes, arthritis, and stress.

But instead of resolving once we got home, the pain got worse as the week progressed.

Friday, the pain level got bad enough for him to take off early from work to go to the doctor's office. Because of his medical history, The Other Half's medication load was changed to accommodate what was thought to be a flare-up of gout, and he was back at work Saturday. But instead of dropping off with the new medication, the pain increased. Sunday morning he was back at the doctor's office. Stronger gout medication was prescribed, and he was sent home. Still, the pain grew worse ("11 or 12 on a scale of 1-10"), and the numbness spread from his toes through his foot and ankle, and almost up to his knee. We feared the possibility of a blood clot. The doctor's office advised The Other Half to go to the emergency room.

After the usual number of blood tests, x-rays, and so on, the diagnosis was not gout -- nor was it arthritis, nor diabetic neuropathy. It was sciatica, whose symptoms include both hip pain and numbness in the toes, foot, and lower leg. While the rapidly-progressing numbness is what alerted the hospital staff to the real cause of the symptoms, the low-level symptoms suggest that this episode may have been a flare-up of an issue that had been progressing for some time. On the correct medications and therapy, The Other Half's pain has abated somewhat and he is on the mend.

Just as it is possible to miss prediabetes or early-stage type 2 diabetes because of other, unrelated health issues, it is possible to "blame diabetes" for health issues that have nothing to do with our blood glucose levels. While this does not categorically rule out the complications and side effects of diabetes, we need our diagnosticians to be able to find the true source of our ills, and treat them appropriately.