Potentially deadly diabetes often goes undiagnosed

BY ANGIE SCHMITT

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

Last winter, members of the Columbiana County-based rock band Moment’s Notice began noticing a change in their drummer and friend.

Normally witty and endearing, Charlie Lindesmith, 49, started coming to practice tired and grumpy. He complained of failing vision.

Something was wrong with Charlie.

For the band’s bass guitarist, Joe Fabian, Lindesmith’s complaints sounded all too familiar.

Fabian, 53, of Campbell, had been diagnosed with Type 2 adult-onset diabetes in 2001.

“We were sitting around talking at practice,” said lead guitarist David Coleman, 54, of Lisbon. “Joe said, ‘Hey listen, you might be diabetic and not know.’”

At their next practice Fabian brought his glucose meter.

Lindesmith’s reading registered off-the-charts.

“It was 500,” Lindesmith recalls, “That’s as high as testers go.”

A hospital visit confirmed the diagnosis. Lindesmith was reaching the late stages of the illness and lucky to be alive.

“If it wouldn’t have been for Joe,” said Lindesmith, a Salem resident, “I probably would have gone into a coma one night driving.”

More than 20 million Americans suffer from diabetes. Nearly one-third, or 6.2 million people, have not been diagnosed, according to the American Diabetes Association.

The disease, which inhibits the production of insulin, interfering with sugar digestion, is on the rise in the U.S. because of surging obesity rates. It affects 7 percent of the population. An average of 4,110 new cases of diabetes are diagnosed daily.

Left untreated, the disease can be fatal. Though diabetes-related deaths are underreported because of the high proportion of undiagnosed cases, the disease is the nation’s fifth leading killer, claiming about 225,000 lives annually.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com