January 25, 2004
Insulin Pumps, Other Illnesses
Question from Baltimore, Maryland, USA:
My six-year-old son recently had a bout of GI infection lasting about two days. During his illness, his blood sugars were stable, he felt pretty good and was active, although he did develop large ketones for a short time which were cleared with extra insulin and fluid intake. He seemed to recover pretty fast from the infection (2-3 days), but his sensitivity to insulin has changed. His normal insulin-to-carb ratio to cover meals has reduced about 33-40% during the day, but his needs at night need to be increased by about 40%. We are making adjustment to return to better control but are baffled at this sudden change. Any ideas would be helpful.
Answer:
Sounds like you have done a great job. If the blood glucose values seem to require different insulin-to-carb ratios or correction factors, then go with the data that you have gathered. Sometimes this happens after an illness for nonspecific reasons. Sometimes it goes back several days later to the previous values that were working. But not always.
SB
