Recently, my 16 year old friend, diagnosed with type�1 diabetes at age two, has been feeling very ill. Her lymph nodes are very swollen, and she gets tired very easily, but she had multiple blood tests done, and everything is negative, except for a blood glucose of 400 mg/dl [22.2 mmol/L]. Her doctor has suggested she have a CAT scan and also x-rays of her chest done. Why would they do that? Also, her doctor mentioned the possibility of some kidney/liver damage? How long does it usually take for the more severe effects of the diabetes to kick in? I know this is bad, but what exactly does this mean?

It is impossible to answer any of your questions except in a general way. it sounds like your friend has some illness and that you should keep encouraging her to work with the medical team to try to determine cause. Some kind of infection could do this, also some types of cancer are all possibilities. None of these are related to having diabetes, though. Whatever is going on is likely the cause of the very high blood glucose readings.

Long term complications tend to show up 10-15 years after diagnosis and depend upon individual and genetic susceptibilities to blood vessel damage in the eyes, kidneys, heart, nervous system and general circulation. Your friend’s doctors should be able to sort this out with a series of tests. If there is any question of diagnosis, then perhaps a second opinion would be reasonable.

SB