Question from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA:

My 10 1/2 year old daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes seven months ago and has been pumping for six months. Her A1c was 9.6 at diagnosis and is down to 7.4. She is very athletic and is good about diet and exercise. Her father has an autoimmune form of arthritis. This winter she was diagnosed with exercise induced asthma and she is having allergy problems. She also often has injuries such as sprains, jammed fingers etc. which swell a lot, cause great pain and take a long time to heal. Because of the amount of swelling and pain the doctors always want to do an x-ray. I assume the diabetes is causing inflammation problems for her and I wonder if there is anything we can do to make this better. My daughter wants to do whatever she can now to reduce future complications and keep herself healthy while we await a cure.