April 4, 2001
Diagnosis and Symptoms
Question from Greenbrae, California, USA:
My eight year old son has type 1 diabetes and some of his school friends have become intrigued by his glucose testing. Recently, three of his friends wanted to be tested, and one of them had a blood sugar in the mid-high 400s mg/dl [22.2 mmol/L]. About one-hour before, he had a candy, but even so, this seems high to us. This boy is known to be a little hyperactive. Should we alert his parents? Is it normal to be so high after consuming candy?
Answer:
Curiosity is a nice thing most of the time. However, in this case, I would always check with a child’s parents before performing even a simple test such as a glucose screen with a meter. You are bound to let the parents know about this abnormal test once it is done. If this was an accurate test, then the child may indeed have diabetes. A true blood sugar of 400 mg/dl [22.2 mmol/L] is always abnormal without exception.
MSB
