Question from Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia, USA:

I was concerned that my 26 month old son might have diabetes because it runs on both sides of our family, and he was overeating along with drinking more than 64 ounces of fluid per day and sweating for no apparent reason. I have started giving him juice when he starts to get sweaty and it seems to help it stop. He also would rub his head when he was sweating, lay on the couch, and say he had a boo-boo. If his head actually hurts when he says this, I don’t know. So, I made an appointment with his doctor.

The doctor did a quick check over, and said he looked good, and sent him to get his finger pricked. His reading was 100 mg/dl [5.6 mmol/L] after he had already consumed two eight-ounce glasses of rice milk along with a little bit of cereal, and the doctor said this shows he does not have diabetes. I questioned whether the drink and food he consumed within two hours prior to the test would have make his reading higher making him hypoglycemic, and he said it was possible but didn’t seem very concerned. The rice milk alone contained total 50 carbs per serving and 22 grams of sugar total. Wouldn’t this affect the sugar level and make it higher?

What do you think is going on? Could the readings have been raised due to what he ate? Can you suggest any other tests that should be performed to rule out something else? I am worried, and I don’t worry easily.