I have a 3 year old that we checked his blood sugar (because grandpa was here and doing his). It was a bedtime check and his was 195. He had nothing to eat in the last 2 hours. A little concerned, I checked it the next A.M. right after breakfast. I know that’s a mistake but it read “HI.” I then got quite concerned and called the pediatrician. He told me to check it in 2 hours and call back if abnormal; it was 328. He then told me to come in to the office, by the time he got to see us it was after 1:30 and he sent us to the lab for a blood draw.

At 2:30 the technician took the blood and his level was 91. My son had not ate or drank since 8:30 that morning. The pediatrician then called back and said we most have a poor meter at home and he suggest we check it. We did all the checks and it was fine. My husband and I also checked ours and they were normal. I then was skeptical about what the doctor had told us so rechecked my son tonight at 8:30 P.M. — he was 225 and the last time he had ate was 6:00 P.M. He had homemade chicken pot-pie, carrots, chicken, potatoes, and gravy (water and flour)and a glass of Kool-Aid. He had nothing else in between but water. Should I be concerned at all?

In the first place the kind of diabetes that ‘grandpa’ has is almost certainly quite different from the kind that your small son might have. Certainly there were some blood sugars that seemed higher than normal; but it really isn’t possible to decide through e-mail whether this was due to some technical error (though this usually gives results that are too low), or to a stress response to all the finger sticking and talk about diabetes or finally to a measure of true glucose intolerance. Since you clearly are anxious now about the possibility of prediabetes I would talk to the pediatrician about some appropriate additional tests. The first and simplest would be to use test strips to see if there is glucose in the urine, the second might be to arrange an A1c test which will indicate if blood sugars have been consistently high over the past several weeks, some form of glucose tolerance test would help; but I would be concerned that this little boy is rather scared of finger sticks and that the stress could distort results.Probably the best way to set minds at rest would be to get an antibody test done. One number to call would be 1-800-425-8361 and another is Quest Diagnostics at 1-949-728-4235 or -4990 fax. If he is Caucasian a negative test would almost certainly mean that he does not have diabetes.

DOB