October 1, 2000
Daily Care, Social Issues: School and Daycare
Question from Pulaski, Virginia, USA:
My six year old son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I had a very hard time the first year of school with severe highs and lows. I had his blood sugar under good control until school started again. Now, his morning readings are ranging from 300+ mg/dl [16.7 mmol/L] to 400+ mg/dl [22.2 mmol/L]. He has had no fevers and no noticeable illness. He is on Regular and Lente in the morning and Humalog and Lente in the evening. The Regular and Humalog are on a sliding scale. Could his readings be caused by some kind of stress?
Answer:
When school starts, children have a significant change in activity level, sleep patterns and diet. All of these can contribute to fluctuations in blood sugars. It is important to be creatively flexible in your insulin dosing to meet these needs. Your diabetes team can help you plan a strategy for insulin dosing. Don’t forget that, even in the very best of cases, children still have occasional wide fluctuations in blood sugars.
MSB
