September 18, 2000
Diagnosis and Symptoms
Question from Illinois, USA:
My daughter is three and one-half years old. Over the last week and a half, she has been unusually thirsty and tired during the day. She is sleeping later in the mornings. She is also eating very large portions at mealtimes. Then, anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours later, she gets very upset and screams, “I am starving”. She complains of hunger no matter how much I feed her. She has been potty trained for one year (and never wet the bed). Suddenly, she has wet the bed every night this week. We have several family members with type 1, so, naturally, I took her to the doctor early this morning. They did a urine dipstick, which was negative for sugar, but positive for protein. They sent it to an outside lab to find out about the protein. She seems to get sicker as the day goes on, why? Could this be some kind of early diabetes? What else could it be? What can I do to help her?
Answer:
Without being able to take a history or examine your daughter, it’s not really good practise to suggest a diagnosis by e-mail. However, the enuresis [loss of bladder control] plus the glucosuria and in a girl, would prompt me to exclude a urinary tract infection before getting a fasting blood sugar. I am sure the pediatrician has already thought of this and I expect that this is what the lab has been asked to look into. I wonder too if she might be confusing ‘hunger’ with ‘thirst’.
DOB
