I am a 28 year old female with gestational diabetes, and this morning, when I took out my blood sugar monitor to test my blood sugar, my seven year old son asked me to check his sugar as well. I did so, and was horrified when his reading was 205 mg/dl [11.4 mmol/L]. He had eaten some cream of wheat which did contain sugar an hour before. I made sure his finger was clean and even tested my machine with the control solution to ensure that it was working properly. About thirty minutes later, I tested his sugar again and it had dropped to 186 mg/dl [10.3 mmol/L] so I took him to the doctor. After waiting three hours, the doctor ordered a random blood sugar test which was 107 mg/dl [5.9 mmol/L], he told me it was nothing to worry about and sent me home.

This evening, my son ate some chicken nuggets and fries for dinner. He finished eating at 4:00 pm, and at 6:00 pm, I checked his sugar again which was was 168 mg/dl [9.3 mmol/L]. He is thirsty quite often and has always urinated frequently. He also sweats a lot.

I am a nurse and am concerned that something is seriously wrong with my son since we have a family history of diabetes. I am considering taking him to a different doctor tomorrow. Am I right to seek a second opinion, or are these blood sugar spikes normal for my child?

See Classification and Diagnosis of Diabetes for more information. This gives you a guide to the diagnosis of diabetes based on blood sugars. It sounds like your child may be at risk for diabetes — or already have diabetes — and would benefit from further testing.

MSB

[Editor’s comment: Testing for diabetes should include blood sugar levels performed by a medical laboratory. The timing of the sample (fasting, random, or postprandial) would influence how high a level is considered abnormal.

Occasionally, lab blood sugar testing might be normal in an early case of diabetes, repeat blood sugar testing at the same or a different time, or performing a glucose tolerance test, might be appropriate if there is a high suspicion of diabetes despite normal initial testing. Another test, the glycosylated hemoglobin, might be used to help confirm a suspected diagnosis of diabetes, but the GHB (also called HbA1c or A1c) is not usually considered as appropriate to make an initial diagnosis. Antibody testing is occasionally done as a screening test in high-risk situations, or as confirmatory of type type 1A (autoimmune) diabetes, but is not part of routine testing.

Urine sugar tests or home glucose testing, if done, might be positive, which would make the situation more urgent to get lab testing done to confirm the abnormal results. However, urine or home glucose testing, if negative, would not exclude diabetes.

SS]