Question from Australia:

I have a 27 year old daughter with Cri Du Chat Syndrome. Several months ago, she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. She is currently very stable on 6 units of insulin in the morning. Her first HBA1c was 9.3 and her most recent one 6.6. Management is not a serious issue at present although her severe skin-picking is likely to become a more serious one in the future.

Have you seen or heard of another person with Type 1 Diabetes or perhaps even Type 2 who also has Cri Du Chat syndrome? I know it does occur in Down’s syndrome since one of the friends she live with in a residential home, has Down’s and is a Type 1 diabetic but this was so unexpected.

I am the Co-ordinator of the support group in Australia for this syndrome and am eventually going to get questions from parents who know us and although I have made enquiries with the major groups in other countries around the world and some of the people who carry out research into this syndrome and none have seen this before, I must satisfy myself as far as possible that it is unrelated so that I can reassure them. I am reluctant to post this to our own message board or in the chatroom for fear of worrying parents already dealing with a severely challenging syndrome, especially since it is not a condition reported as occurring with Cri Du Chat.