July 3, 2001
Hyperglycemia and DKA, Insulin Pumps
Question from Lombard, Illinois, USA:
My 17 year old son who has been on a pump for a week, has had two episodes of extremely high glucose readings. The first resolved fairly easily even though he had large ketones in his urine, but he was very sick with vomiting and fatigue during this second one. His blood glucose remained high (and he had small urine ketones) even after taking two additional boluses (a total of 13.5 units), and the vomiting did not subside until I gave him a suppository and an regular injection of 2 units in his arm. Is this enough to cause the symptoms he displayed? Was there something else going on here? What varying factors are there to explain the difference? Could my son still have been in DKA with very high blood sugar and only a trace of ketones?
Answer:
It sounds like your son had a virus, his insulin pump was malfunctioning, and/or he had a kink in the infusion set.. You should review this in great detail with your son’s diabetes treatment team and can learn from this episode. Not all illnesses cause frank DKA [diabetic ketoacidosis], of course.
When in doubt, give an injection and look for for possible pump or catheter problems once the insulin is given.
SB
