A man admitted to hospital for spinal decompression turned out to have diabetes with associated muscle atrophy, in a case that has prompted a call for doctors to consider the diagnosis in similar patients.

The 49-year-old man, who had no family history of diabetes, was scheduled for a spinal decompression for acute burning pain that radiated from his left buttock to the left lateral leg.

The symptoms began about two weeks after he started attending a gym in a bid to overcome the chronic lethargy, irritability and increased thirst he had been experiencing for 18 months, doctors from the University of Maryland Medical System in the US wrote in BMJ Case Reports.

The man consulted an orthopaedic surgeon, but his symptoms worsened. At his most recent orthopaedic appointment, he reported new leg weakness, muscle atrophy and an unintentional 13.6kg weight loss.