Question from Atlanta, Georgia, USA:

My four year old daughter has type 1 diabetes for a little over a year. She is currently on four shots a day. We still do not have her blood sugars under control. We have readings in the mid-200 mg/dl [13.9 mmol/L] range and she has low readings once or twice a day.

My concern is that she seems to be very tired all the time. She does not want to play for very long with her sisters and, when we go out, she always wants to go back home. She is always saying she is tired. This has been going on for about a month and half now. Before this, she did not require a lot of sleep. She would play all day long and, when it was time for bed, she would go to her room and play in her room until 11:00 at night. She would then get up a number of times throughout the night.

We found out she had enlarged adenoids and she started taking medicine for this. Now, she is falling asleep at 8:30 p.m. and sleeping all through the night. Her morning blood sugars are usually in the high 100s or low 200s mg/dl [10.5 to 11.7 mmol/L]. But, during the day, she is always saying she is tired and just wants to watch movies. My husband says that she is just saying she is tired all the time to get our attention, but her preschool teacher says that she says that she is tired all the time at school. I don’t think it is to get attention.