February 28, 2001
Diagnosis and Symptoms
Question from Clarkston, Washington, USA:
My six year old son seems to be having problems with hypoglycemia. He has seizures and developmental apraxia, is medicated for ADHD, and is waiting to go to a specialist to see if he has high functional autism. All of his EEG’S and brain scans are normal.
He has excessive thirst and urination, problems with bedwetting and coldness, and very bad tummy aches. He eats hour on the hour, and if he does not eat, he cries and has screaming fits until I can get food in to him. Once he eats, after about half an hour, he improves, eats again and is back to himself as if it never happened.
My son only weighs 37 pounds and still wears size four and five clothes. He is very pale and at times looks like he has black eyes. About two weeks ago, he became cold and feel asleep at school and the teachers were not able to wake him up and covered him with a coat and let him sleep. After a short time period, they called a friend to pick him up and my friend said he could hardly be aroused and was very confused. He got my son a fruit snack and he got a little better until I got him and took him to the doctor.
I am frightened for my son. He looked so sick, but I kept forcing food down him and he got better. Is all this possibly connected? Can diabetes be the problem and his possible diagnosis is wrong?
Answer:
If the diagnosis of hypoglycemia has indeed been confirmed by the finding of low blood sugars and is not just based on the symptoms, then I think it is very unlikely to be due to diabetes. In any case, this could be largely excluded by doing a fasting blood sugar and looking for sugar in the urine by dipstick. Likewise, another simple urine test for ketones, if negative, would discount ketotic hypoglycemia, a much more common problem in the young. Again, this is unlikely in your son because of his apparently good appetite. I would indeed be surprised if these simple tests had not already been done. It is possible, however, that both the hypoglycemia and the seizures and other neurological problems might be due to one of the rare metabolic disorders of fatty acid and organic acid metabolism, and perhaps this is something to ask his doctors about.
DOB
