September 25, 2000
Daily Care
Question from Sulphur Springs, Texas, USA:
My eight year old son was diagnosed at age two and one-half. His blood sugar is in fairly good control, but there are days when it bounces from low (68 mg/dl [3.8 mmol/L]) to high (300s mg/dl [16.7 mmol/L]) in a matter of four hours. We follow his diet and insulin regimen very carefully, adjusting when necessary, but these unexplained crazy days really have us baffled. No medical or emotional problems are evident. Help!
Answer:
Daily fluctuations of blood sugar levels in an eight year old child with type 1 diabetes are often unpredictable. Besides the classical issues concerning insulin, food and exercise, some other issues could be active: variations of absorption of insulins from the different injection sites, different waiting times among meals, varying before-meal blood sugar levels, glycemic indexes of different foods, etc. Anyhow, these fluctuations are not dangerous if not frequent, and if the average HbA1c levels are fine.
MS
