A few years ago my now nine year old son’s father was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I have noticed a lot of correlated symptoms between him and his father. One big one is that he is still wetting the bed, despite everything I have tried, including medication. Every year, I have him tested for diabetes and so far, so good, but I know you can have diabetes for a long time before it actually shows up. I have done a lot of research, and I have found the most promising theory on delaying or preventing diabetes to be immunosuppression. I have tried to ask my son’s doctor for referrals to experimental research, but he doesn’t seem to have any answers for me. He just does a urine test once a year. I feel very certain that it is only a matter of time before he develops full blown diabetes and if I don’t try everything to help him avoid getting it, that I will have failed him. Is there any immunosupression research for the prevention of diabetes to which you could refer me? Also what are your thoughts on using worms for suppression?

Most cases of enuresis are not caused by diabetes, but diabetes can sometimes show up as enuresis. Most cases of undiagnosed diabetes occur in older folks with type 2 diabetes and not type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes typically has more obvious symptoms for long periods of time and would not likely be missed with urine or blood glucose testing. Sometimes enuresis is caused by bladder or urethral problems, so a consultation with a pediatric urologist may be in order. If you want to check for high sugars, you can certainly learn how to get capillary finger stick blood glucose and a small meter and do this at home periodically. This would reassure you that you are not missing diabetes. There are some antibody tests that could be done to see if there is any evidence of subtle pancreatic damage; one called islet cell antibody and another called GAD65 are available commercially, but are expensive. If positive, a referral to a pediatric endocrinologist would be reasonable. If blood glucose levels were not normal, then this would also need a referral to a pediatric endocrinologist for a specialty consultation.

Worm therapy has no place in this discussion.

SB