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April 9, 2003

Hypoglycemia

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Question from Granger, Indiana, USA:

My three year old son was diagnosed with type�1 diabetes about five months ago, and since then he has had some major tantrums. He resorts to gagging, holds his breath, and it appears as though he wants to throw up.

A couple of weeks ago, he fell asleep on the floor watching TV, woke up extremely grumpy on his own, and when my husband tested his blood sugar, it was 88 mg/dl [4.9 mmol/L]. He became combative and was running from me. I realized he wasn’t going to cooperate with a juice box so I got the CakeMate. He fought me on that, but I got some in. He fell on the floor, gagged, was very red in the face, was just screaming, and his eyes were kind of fixed. He wet his pants even though he has been potty trained for at least a year. After a few seconds, he screamed “I’m dead. I’m dead.” and seemed very panicked. At that point, he let me comfort him and cooperated with drinking some milk. We tested about 10 minutes later, and he was 184 mg/dl [10.2 mmol/L]. He got extremely drowsy (to the point it was scaring me). Then he got up to go to the bathroom and cried that his “legs wouldn’t work anymore”.

A couple of days later, in the midst of a much milder tantrum, he wet his pants again. He just started sobbing “I didn’t know I did that “. He just never wets his pants and hates to be wet.

Were these seizures? Does it sound like it was related to the hypoglycemia? Could he have been on his way back up when we tested? Any idea?

Answer:

From: DTeam Staff

This sounds more like a behavior problem than a seizure. You are in the middle of a difficult age — even without diabetes. I would encourage you to talk to your son’s pediatrician for further advice if the behavior persists.

On occasion, problematic behavior can represent low or high blood sugars. One should always test and treat accordingly if an unusual behavior happens with younger and even older children.

MSB