diabetes Diabetes

[sbrewer]

Hi,

Does anyone know how long you can have diabetes before it surfaces as full blown diabetes?

Reason....My husband had a heart attack in 1996 at the age of 39. He had to have a quadruple by-pass. At that time he was not dianosed with diabetes.

Fast forward to now...His cardiologist(which he has had from the beginning) says he thinks his heart disease was due to Diabetes.

Thanks,

sbrewer

[Berta]

In 1997 , a year after your husband had a heart attack, the criteria for diabetes had changed to what it is now-

primarily because too many Americans were getting diabetic complications yet remained undiagnosed with the old criteria- the criteria is now :

Any patient with two fasting plasma glucose levels of 126 mg per dL (7.0 mmol per L) or greater is considered to have diabetes mellitus.

If his medical records reveal high glucose levels within a diabetes definition in 1996 or any year after that as in the above criteria (they are found on the blood chem reports,) and also other medical data such as creatinine levels, tryglcerides etc were at abnormal values, and obviously he has a doctor saying his heart disease was due to diabetes- then-if I were you-

and if he was getting VA care from 1996 to present, I would file a Section 1151 claim stating that the VA failed to diagnosis and treat properly his diabetic condition ,and he has suffered resulting disability (heart disease) due to their medical negligence.

If he did not show the documented signs and symptoms of diabetes in his past med recs,then the doctor is just opining on a potential cause-which possibly could not have been recognized.

It seems to me that anyone who got such severe cardiac surgery would have been ruled in or out as diabetic before they even did this procedure.

But if the VA was involved- they might have ignored the signs of this condition. Did this doctor base his opinion on the full medical profile of the 10 years since the heart attack?

[sbrewer]

Berta,

He was not going to the VA at this time. He had quit going around 1984. I don't know why he quit going

but he was going for sc 10% depression.

He contacted the VA in 2004 to get a letter for employment, at that time they said they had "lost him"

and sent the letter for 10 points preference for employment.

During these yrs., He was seeing a primary care dr. on the outside and had his heart attack in 1996.

He has seen the same cardiologist since 1996. He also was not being treated at all for depression during all these yrs. Again, I don't know why, but he really should have been. Anyway, he is now back in the VA and his primary dr. there thinks she is not only med.dr. but cardiologist and shrink, however she did finally send him to a real shrink per his request more than once to her. The VA pyschologist told him the depression caused heart disease, but so far has not put any of this in his records. He is to see her next week and he wants her to put that in his records.

Thanks,

sbrewer