July 20, 2000
Daily Care
Question from Cyprus:
I am writing to you as I am very concerned about my niece who is 2 years and 4 months old. She was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes last month. It has been almost a month and the doctors have still not worked out a program for her on the amount of insulin necessary. Her sugar levels are very strange ranging from a very high to a very low. We cannot seem to maintain a balance and the toddler is becoming very tired and it is causing her stress. She has also become very difficult to handle while administering the insulin and complains that it is burning her.
Is it normal procedure for a toddler who has been diagnosed 3 weeks ago, to still be so unbalanced and going from an extreme high to an extreme low? I can give you an example: this morning her sugar level was at 56 and this afternoon it went up to 368, I was extremely worried since she had become terribly pale and she was extremely tired.
Do you think that we should seek help from doctors in a nearby country, for example Israel or Greece?
Answer:
I have to say that managing toddlers with diabetes can be a frustrating and difficult business, principally because of their reluctance to eat all that they are offered in a timely fashion. Such wild swings in blood sugar as you describe could be due to an unsuitable diet, e. g., sugary sweets replacing starchy carbohydrate because she wouldn’t eat the latter. They could also be because she’s on the wrong insulin dose. I am not in a position to make useful comments about this and all I can suggest is a frank discussion with her doctors about what they feel is going on and what should be done — this may include a second opinion.
KJR
