Question from Newman, California, USA:

I took my daughter to the Emergency Room about two weeks ago, because she was vomiting, had diarrhea, fever of 102-103 degrees, and bad abdominal pain around her belly button, which lasted for about a whole week. Now, the first visit to the hospital they took blood samples and urine sample, and didn’t find anything. Her pain continued so I took her in the next morning, Monday, to see our family doctor, who referred me back to the same hospital. So, they ran more tests on her, including blood and urine. This time they found sugar in her urine. They sent us home with Donnagel for her cramping and phenergan for her nausea because she wasn’t holding anything down.

The physician at the hospital talked to our family doctor about setting up an appointment at Madera Children’s Hospital with one of their specialists in children’s diabetes. Well, that never happened because they weren’t accepting new patients at this time, so I was told that they, our family doctor’s office, were going to try to find another physician to get my daughter seen.

Now, this our second week. My daughter was doing fine for the past five days, but all of sudden she started getting the same symptoms again. I forgot to say that she would also get the chills and shake at times after she would eat, and would say that her head hurts. Today, April 13, 2004, I took her back to see her family doctor because of her symptoms, and they set me up an appointment for this Friday with one of their doctors in their office in Modesto, California, I’m just really concerned and scared that too much time is being wasted here. She’s only six years old and from some of the material I’ve read about diabetes this disease is pretty dangerous if not controlled and treated. Isn’t there some kind of foundation or special services for children like this, or am I just a little bit over concerned?