Question from Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA:

I am growing more concerned about my 10 year old daughter. A couple of years ago, she was noted to have acanthosis nigricans. We were given some information about insulin resistance, but no testing was done at that time. According to her doctor, he would have been more likely to act if she were older or overweight. She is small in stature with weight proportional to height. She does have additional risk factors due to having a paternal grandmother with diabetes and being of Hispanic background.

Her dad and I were fine with not putting her through tests back then, if they did not seem necessary. However, this weekend she had what appeared to be symptoms of hypoglycemia. Upon standing, she became very dizzy and confused, shaky, immediately teary, and reported blurred vision. This resolved upon her sitting for a while and drinking some orange juice, but was very upsetting to her, probably because it seemed to come on so quickly. Her maternal grandmother has hypoglycemia so my daughter’s behavior seemed eerily similar to what I’ve seen before in my mom. Upon reading other questions at this site, it seems that this could be related to insulin resistance, but I don’t really understand the process. My daughter has also has been reporting that she can’t see well in general and has been moved to the front row of her classroom although her vision has previously been tested as normal. She’s had some sleepwalking incidents, too, which I didn’t know until reading questions here, may be related to hypoglycemia as well.

I know all my concerns may not be related to this, but it’s definitely enough that I plan to follow-up right away with the doctor who noticed her skin condition. However, I would greatly appreciate additional opinions about whether some type of testing seems warranted and what that would/should include.