March 27, 2007
Aches and Pains
Question from Atlanta, Georgia, USA:
My seven-year-old daughter has had type 1 diabetes for about five months. She’s adjusting fairly well with some good days and some bad. For the past couple of nights, she has been waking in the middle of the night with leg pain and terrible leg tremors. She looks like a dog that’s scratching and can’t control it. It doesn’t last for very long, but it has alarmed me. Could this be related to her diabetes? Should I call her regular pediatrician or the endocrinologist to report this new symptom?
Answer:
They might be a kind of episodic cramps that sometimes happen during the night in the legs in diabetics and are secondary to sudden electrolyte disturbances when blood sugars have fluctuated over the previous hours. They are not dangerous. This is only a hypothesis based on your letter, but I’d ask your pediatrician for a consultation.
MS
