July 30, 2002
Diagnosis and Symptoms
Question from Garnett, Kansas, USA:
I have had diabetes for 26 years. I’ve noticed that my six year old daughter lots of accidents in her clothes, and yesterday she was told that she was spilling ketones in her urine. I did a fasting blood sugar on her last week which was 81 mg/dl [4.5 mmol/L]. Should I take her to the family doctor and have blood drawn?
Answer:
Ketones occur when fasting or when blood glucose is very high in diabetes. In either case, the cells are not getting energy and call on fat for food. Ketones are the result of fat breakdown.
If your daughter had diabetes, the same urine would likely have shown glucose. If it didn’t and no other urine has glucose, then diabetes isn’t likely at this moment. Also, you can check sugars at home, like you are doing. You could also ask your doctor check for some of the markers for diabetes (ICA 512/IA2, GAD , and insulin autoantibodies). She might have them.
LD