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June 29, 2003

Puberty

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Question from Waynesville, Missouri, USA:

My 10 year old son, who has had type 1 diabetes for almost three years, has had a terrible odor to his hair lately and his blood sugar has been up and down for about six months. He washes daily and shampoos. I tell him to wash his hair twice when he showers to make sure it is clean. I smell his hair after his shower to make sure he washed it. Is the hair odor part of puberty? Do kids with diabetes tend to have “heightened” problems during puberty? Also, he is a poor eater and does not tend to stick with his eating plan.

Answer:

From: DTeam Staff

Hair odor is due to the hormonal changes that are typically produced during puberty generally starting after teens. Kids with diabetes don’t show any further different pattern. The teenage years are a difficult period of life to deal with diabetes though. Teenagers stick to diets and insulin therapy poorly and prefer to manage their diabetes without his/her parents input.

Talk your son’s pediatric diabetes team to learn just how much a parent should and may interact in the teenager’s diabetes especially during the transition period from childhood trough adolescence to adult age.

MS