Question from St. Paul, Minnesota, USA:

My daughter is 16 years old and has had type 1 for 15 years. Her diabetes has always been difficult to manage — many highs and lows. She catches every cold that comes around, and, with them, gets ketones and is very sick. She is active and dances four days a week. For the last couple of years, she has frequent stomachaches. She has never been a breakfast eater, but usually does manage to eat two carbs before school. For the last year she has many mornings where she says she is feels sick to her stomach, but seldom vomits. If she has ketones then I can understand this, but, at other times, we don’t know why this happens. It happened again this morning. Her blood sugar was good — 77 mg/dl [4.3 mmol/L]. No fever, no ketones. She could not eat until 11:30 am and had chicken soup and crackers. She rested all morning. She has been trying to figure out why this happens and what to do about it. School is going well and she loves school so I don’t see a problem with this.

She has had protein in the urine for two years, but, upon doing a 24 hour collection, that was normal. We are both frustrated and wish she would feel good more often.