December 11, 2000
Other Illnesses
Question from Detroit, Michigan, USA:
Our seven year old son was recently diagnosed with type�1 diabetes. Prior to developing diabetes, he started having migraines preceded by flashes of light, followed by momentary loss of vision. He has an abnormal EEG during this, always associated with high sugar. He was born with pulmonary stenosis and had his pulmonary valve ballooned at birth. Recently, he has begun complaining of chest pains. His EKG is normal (for his defect), but unfortunately, the readings occur after the event and not during. We cannot associate the chest pain with excessive activity or stressful events. His sugars are almost always high during these episodes, which are 10 minutes in duration. His cardiologist is at a loss to explain the cause of my son’s pain, stating “it’s a puzzle.” Can you offer any suggestions as to the possible cause of the chest pain?
Answer:
This all sounds very complicated. I hope you have a good person working with the migraines. There are lots of good medications available today. Is his heartbeat real fast (200+) with the chest pain? If the events occur often enough, you might have you son wear a device called a Holter monitor, or even skip a dose of insulin to make the sugar high and see what happens.
LD
