Question from Fort Riley, Kansas, USA:

Several months ago, very shortly after arising in the morning, my 10 year old daughter who has Down Syndrome became faint and fell to the ground. I took her to the ER where they found nothing unusual, but they did not draw any blood. I took her for a follow-up several days later and all the doctor said is that, by looking at her mouth, it appeared that she needed to drink more water. We have been making her drink more but is very hard to actually force her to. Since then, there have been two additional mornings where she has become very faint and lost any sign of color in her lips and face. One of the key things, I feel, is that these occurrences have always been first thing in the morning.

I have read the typical symptoms of hypoglycemia, but she doesn’t seem to fit the bill according to those listed. My neighbor had mentioned that it may possibly be a sugar problem, but my daughter really does mot have much sugar in her diet. She won’t eat sweets at all (doesn’t care for them), we use sugar-free Koolaid, and the only other thing she will drink is milk.

We have another appointment soon but I just wanted to check into some things myself before then. Any ideas? Could this be related to sugar some way? If so, what tests are necessary? Does this type of thing always show up in blood work?