For years, I have tried a lot of things to mantain my daughters’ blood sugars. I have two daughters with type 1 diabetes; one is 13 and one is 18. Recently, the endocrinologist of younger daughter said that my 13-year-old daughter was not getting her insulin, which is not true. She gets her insulin every day, but her numbers are still high. I just found out a month ago that my daughter has a bacterial infection in her stomach. Her doctor was recently informed of this. She started treatment for this but I was told that the treatment can go anywhere from three to nine months. My daughter had this infection in her body for over seven months before it was discovered. I have been asking questions and get no answers. What should I do? I’m at my wits’ end and beyond stressed out!

You didn’t mention A1c levels or actual home blood glucose readings. When teens start to have such problems as you describe, usually the best thing to do is to work together, where you, the parent, supervise the food portions, carbohydrate counting, and blood glucose results directly and make sure that there really is no insulin being missed. These are common problems. If a parent directly observes these parts of the management program, then omissions will usually either be identified or stop. If insulin is not being omitted, then there may be other investigations, i.e., infections, menstrual problems, thyroid and behavior problems that could also cause chronic high glucose readings. So, it is best to go back and discuss with your diabetes team about why they would think there is omitted insulin and what you, as a parent, can do to help decipher the causes.

SB