I consider myself a diabetes veteran even though I was diagnosed only three years ago. But considering where I started and where I am and how I got here puts me in that category.

What I mean by "how I got here" is self education, without which I would not be where I am.

When I was (wrongly) diagnosed as pre-diabetic, I really thought my treatment method was proactive. I was diagnosed by a nurse practitioner, who said, "Even though you don't have diabetes yet, let's treat you like you do." A technique I thought was absolutely excellent. He started me on oral meds, I started randomly checking my blood sugar (as instructed), I started an exercise routine and counted carbs. It worked great. Or so I thought--because, frankly, I didn't know any better at the time.

And then I got pregnant, and things changed. I devoured any and all information I could find about diabetes and pregnancy. And when it became apparent that I was not pre-diabetic, I searched for even more information and more support. And thankfully I found it. Thankfully I had the drive to find it. Thankfully I knew to look for it.

Hindsight is 20/20, and what I know now is that instead of blindly assuming I had pre-type 2 diabetes from a blood glucose test, much, much, much more testing should have been conducted. A three-hour glucose tolerance test, antibody blood tests, 24-hour urine tests. Something more. Anything more.

I don't know exactly what would have happened if I hadn't gotten pregnant when I did, but I can guess that I would have been much more uncontrolled for a much longer time. And I think that's how a lot of people do it. They take their doctor's word for it and that's the way it is. Some people don't dig deeper.

But I think one of the bigger problems is that when adults are diagnosed with diabetes, too often doctors simply assume they have type 2. And without further testing, without digging deeper, without offering more information and support, you can be doing more damage than good.