My 8 year old daughter was diagnosed with diabetes 4 weeks ago. She’s doing okay — 2 shots a day — mix of Humalog and N 8/15 A.M. and 3/6 P.M. Her blood sugars are staying right around 100 average all the time. My question is about the “honeymoon period”. Is there a way to tell if her body is still producing some of her own insulin? I read a posting about taking nicotinamide to prolong the honeymoon period. Would it hurt to try it?

You are already doing a fine job of controlling blood sugars; but from the amount of insulin required it is clear that your daughter is producing little if any the hormone herself. There are tests to determine endogenous production of insulin like the insulin/glucose tolerance test which measures serum insulin levels at 1 and 3 minutes after a standard intravenous load of glucose: at this stage though it would be expensive and not really helpful.

A large study on school children in Auckland, New Zealand has shown that nicotinamide can delay the need for insulin in a proportion of antibody positive prediabetic children. However there have been several studies demonstrating that it is of no value when started after the need for supplementary insulin has been established. There is no evidence that nicotinamide is harmful.

DOB