![\"Pineiro](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/woman-misdiagnosed-LADA-03-mh-09042026-59e35e.jpg\")
Pineiro first learned of her elevated blood sugar in late 2022.Courtesy Naomi Pineiro<\/p>\nWhen Naomi Pineiro, 33, of Guayabo, Puerto Rico, went for routine blood work in late 2022, she wasn\u2019t expecting anything to be wrong. Pineiro was active, doing CrossFit about five days a week, and she had no family history of diabetes. When her fasting glucose came back at 120 mg\/dL, in the prediabetes range, she didn\u2019t think much of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis must be a mistake,\u201d Pineiro recalls telling herself. \u201cI might have had ice cream the night before. Maybe I had a glass of wine.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there were other signs that something wasn\u2019t quite right. Pineiro was excessively tired and experiencing migraines and blurry vision. She had recently started a demanding job in corporate banking and assumed stress was the culprit.<\/p>\n
A few months later, Pineiro saw a nutritionist at work, who encouraged her to consult a doctor about her still-elevated blood sugar. This doctor sent her for an oral glucose tolerance test, which measures how well your body processes sugar. She \u201cfailed\u201d the test when her glucose rose to about 345 mg\/dL, and she was subsequently diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.<\/p>\n
Pineiro first learned of her elevated blood sugar in late 2022.Courtesy Naomi Pineiro<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that time, again, I was very ignorant of the term of diabetes,\u201d Pineiro tells TODAY.com. \u201cSo it wasn\u2019t like, \u2018Oh my god, I need to go running to the doctor or anything.\u2019 I was like, \u2018OK, I already started with a nutritionist. I\u2019ll keep doing exercise, and I\u2019ll be mindful of my diet,\u2019\u201d she adds. <\/p>\n
There was just one problem: Pineiro didn\u2019t actually have Type 2 diabetes.<\/p>\n
She Lost 30 Pounds, But Her Blood Sugar Kept Rising<\/p>\n
Pineiro took her diagnosis seriously. She worked with a nutritionist, continued exercising and started taking diabetes medication. She was prescribed Ozempic to manage her blood sugar, and she lost about 30 pounds.<\/p>\n
But controlling her blood sugar required increasingly drastic measures. After she began wearing a FreeStyle Libre continuous glucose monitor, or CGM, she saw her blood sugar routinely spike to 290-300 mg\/dL after breakfast. (For people without diabetes, post-meal spikes usually only hit 140 mg\/dL or lower, and fasting glucose is 99 mg\/dL or lower.)<\/p>\n
Her response at the time was to exercise more, drink more water and cut back on carbohydrates.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just chasing after numbers, not really knowing what I was doing,\u201d she says. Even her wedding day was affected. Pineiro says her blood sugar dropped so low that she had to leave her own celebration for about an hour to drink Sprite and recover.<\/p>\n
![\"Pineiro](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/woman-misdiagnosed-LADA-04-mh-09042026-a3fad1.jpg\")
Pineiro learned to love running after getting the correct diagnosis.Courtesy Naomi Pineiro<\/p>\n
Given her healthy lifestyle, Pineiro was confused. She repeatedly raised her concerns with her endocrinologist. <\/p>\n
\u201cI kept telling her, \u2018I\u2019m not doing anything else. \u2026 I\u2019m still working out, still eating right,\u2019\u201d Pineiro says. \u201cI think she didn\u2019t believe me at that time. She was dismissing me.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Frightening Hospitalization<\/p>\n
By March 2025, more than two years after her abnormal blood work, Pineiro was struggling to get through the workday. \u201cI was super tired all the time,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
After eating lunch, she sometimes spent the remainder of her break sleeping in her car because she was having so much trouble staying awake. Then, her hand became swollen for seemingly no reason.<\/p>\n
Pineiro continued working at first. Her boss suggested she draw a circle around the swollen area with a marker so they could see whether it spread. By lunchtime, the swelling had grown well beyond the circle. Her boss urged her to go to the emergency room.<\/p>\n
Pineiro was diagnosed with cellulitis, a bacterial skin infection, and admitted to the hospital. While she was there, her blood sugar climbed to about 500 mg\/dL, she says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t even stand up. I was fainting,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n
![\"Running](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/woman-misdiagnosed-LADA-02-mh-09042026-df0a58.jpg\")
Running has help Pineiro cope with her life-changing LADA diagnosis.Courtesy Naomi Pineiro<\/p>\n
Doctors told Pineiro she had developed diabetic ketoacidosis, or DKA, a serious complication of diabetes that occurs when the body does not have enough insulin. <\/p>\n
Pineiro says she had no idea what the diagnosis meant. \u201cI didn\u2019t understand what was going on and how severe it was and how it could impact my long-term health,\u201d she says. Doctors gave her insulin in the hospital to bring down her blood sugar, but Pineiro says she was discharged without insulin and instructed to follow up with a doctor.<\/p>\n
She returned to her endocrinologist, who prescribed several medications, including insulin. But Pineiro says she still didn\u2019t understand why her diabetes had suddenly become so difficult to manage. \u201cI\u2019m not going to start using a bunch of medicines without knowing what\u2019s actually wrong with me,\u201d she remembers thinking. \u201cWhat\u2019s going on?\u201d <\/p>\n
So she decided to find another doctor.<\/p>\n
\u2018I Felt Like I Was an Alien Inside My Own Body\u2019<\/p>\n
Pineiro began calling endocrinologists in Puerto Rico, but says the earliest appointments she could find were months away. Meanwhile, she was still dealing with extremely high blood sugar and feeling increasingly ill. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was super, super stressful. I was very overwhelmed,\u201d she says. \u201cI felt like I was an alien inside my own body because nothing was working.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her in-laws had previously received treatment at Mayo Clinic and encouraged her to seek another opinion. Pineiro researched endocrinology programs and sent her medical records to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Within two days, the hospital called her to schedule an appointment. Pineiro took medical leave from work and boarded a plane with her husband.<\/p>\n
![\"Pineiro](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/woman-misdiagnosed-LADA-01-mh-09042026-97b0f5.jpg\")
Pineiro lost 30 pounds after starting treatment for her diabetes.Courtesy Naomi Pineiro<\/p>\n
At Mayo Clinic, doctors ordered tests she had never received before, including a C-peptide test to evaluate how much insulin her body was producing and a diabetes autoantibody panel. Three of the four autoantibodies were positive, Pineiro says, and her insulin production was extremely low.<\/p>\n
This time, she got a different diagnosis: latent autoimmune diabetes in adults, or LADA, also known as Type 1.5 diabetes.<\/p>\n
LADA is Type 1 diabetes that begins in adulthood instead of childhood. With LADA, the pancreas cannot make enough insulin, resulting in uncontrolled blood sugar levels. <\/p>\n
![\"Pineiro](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/woman-misdiagnosed-LADA-05-mh-09042026-38b70f.jpg\")
Pineiro is now training for the Berlin Marathon.Courtesy Naomi Pineiro<\/p>\n