Question from Saint Joseph, Missouri, USA:

A month ago, my niece visited and I noticed that she had a huge appetite. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I just thought she was going through a growing spell. However, she visited again yesterday and her eating habits were very enormous. After 2 cans of icing, 3 toasted cheese sandwiches, pretzels, a bag of cereal, a gallon of Kool-Aid (all of which she had started eating after she had just had a huge breakfast ), she fell asleep. She is very skinny. My husband has diabetes, so we thought she ought to be checked. Her blood sugar was 511 mg/dl [28.4 mmol/l] at 8 pm. By 8:30 pm, it was 410 mg/dl [22.7 mmol/l].

We took her to the emergency room and her blood sugar there was 121 mg/dl [6.7 mmol/l]. They did some lab work and it was 99 mg/dl [5.5 mmol/l]. At the hospital, they told her that she did not have diabetes and to watch what she eats. They never ran an Hba1c test.

Today all she ate was a bowl of cereal this morning, 2 hot dogs for lunch and a hamburger for dinner and her blood sugar was 122 mg/dl [6.8 mmol/l]. Can a normal person have such high blood sugars or is she going through the honeymoon stage of diabetes?