Two weeks ago, my eight and one half year old daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. She was being seen for another problem, but they found sugar in her urine, so they did a blood glucose which was 269 mg/dl [14.9 mmol/L]. We then spent two days at the hospital for teaching. My daughter is in great health, and she had not lost any weight, but she had wet the bed three times during the previous week which was highly unusual. They never took any blood other than using the meter. Is there a possibility that she has been misdiagnosed? They are giving her one half a unit of Humalog and five units of NPH in the morning and one-half unit of Humalog at dinner time. What else needs to be done to make sure my daughter has diabetes? I am very concerned that they did not do any blood work to determine this.

With the symptoms you describe and the very elevated blood glucose level, there is not much else that would explain this other than diabetes. Sometimes we do islet cell antibodies and GAD antibodies to confirm specific type�1 diabetes, but this is often not necessary in children. We also routinely do fasting lipid analysis and thyroid testing as well as tests for celiac disease. Looking at her response to insulin and her frequent blood glucose readings will also give you some added information about her glucose levels since these are maintained in very tight range if the pancreas is working correctly.

You should ask these same questions to your diabetes treatment team so that you can be comfortable with the diagnosis, how it was made, why it was considered, and why not much else is in the possibilities list. The more you can learn about diabetes, the better for you and your family, of course. Take it one day at a time, learn a little bit more each day and feel free to discuss information that you need as well as emotions you are all feeling. It will get better as you learn more and get things back under control.

The American Diabetes Association has a great website called Wizdom for newly diagnosed kids and their parents. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation also has a good website.

SB