- Messages
- 15
- Type of diabetes
- Type 1
- Treatment type
- Insulin
First time poster, long time reader of the forum.
If this was just a question I would be asking "Does puberty affect Type 1 diabetes?" Obviously the answer is going to be 'yes' - since it has profound effects on the whole body and glucose control is a fickle beast at the best of times...
Some background, I am Type 1 myself, have been for 23 years so am fine with helping and educating my youngest son on the day to day needs of sharing life with diabetes. I have twin older boys. Sadly my wife died of cancer 5 years ago, so I have been a single parent of my 3 boys since that time.
My youngest son is 11, soon turning 12 and was diagnosed at the age of 8. I never had to deal with diabetes at that age so I am constantly amazed and proud of how well he adapted and give or take the occasional bad day his control and management is as good as mine despite me having a 20 year head start.
He is confident and active and knows that being diabetic is not a reason to not do anything he wants in life, nor does he put up with any kind of discrimination.
A quick example of the kind of kid he is usually. Last year, we were eating out in a restaurant and he used his pen to inject his bolus discreetly under the table. This was noticed by a 'not very pleasant' woman from the opposite table who came up to us and stated "I think you should do that in the bathroom, because there are people here who don't like needles!", and before I even had a chance to get my hackles up, my son calmly stated "I don't like your hair, perhaps you should eat your food in the toilets!"
Anyway the reason I am posting this now is that on Saturday he was at his friends house to watch a movie, and when he came back he went straight to his room and just seemed quieter than his usual boisterous self.
I left it a while and then checked on him, it was clear that he was upset and had been crying. So we had a talk and he had upset himself because his bs was high (11.2) despite taking a split bolus for the pizza he had eaten 3 hours before. Then he said that maybe he had forgotten to take the other half of his bolus. I asked him how much he thought he had taken and all his maths were good (as usual) and all logged on his phone.
FYI: My son is very capable of calculating his carb/insulin requirements. But I have a rule that if he thinks he needs to take a correction dose he must tell either me, his older brothers or a teacher before he does so. As a family we eat a moderately low carb diet (nothing excessive), but things like pizza and treats are allowed on occassion.
So I told him ok, it was no big deal, and we will wait an hour and then correct if needed. That's when he told me the reason he had been crying was because he thought I would be disappointed in him for making a mistake. We talked some more and I reassured him I will never be disappointed etc. and reminded him that sometimes bs will do crazy things even if we do everything right.
This was the first time I had ever seen him genuinely upset about his diabetes, sure he has been frustrated at times, but this kind of shocked me, normally he would just have just said that he had made a mistake and probably made a joke of it, before sorting himself out.
So yes, he is at that age, he's growing fast and sprouting hair, and I'm sure his reaction was down to hormones as much as anything else.
I would love to hear from other parents of Type 1s who can share any experiences of changes in their child's emotional and physiological reactions to their diabetes, just so I can be better prepared for when it happens!
Thanks for reading [it wasn't meant to be so long]
Max
If this was just a question I would be asking "Does puberty affect Type 1 diabetes?" Obviously the answer is going to be 'yes' - since it has profound effects on the whole body and glucose control is a fickle beast at the best of times...
Some background, I am Type 1 myself, have been for 23 years so am fine with helping and educating my youngest son on the day to day needs of sharing life with diabetes. I have twin older boys. Sadly my wife died of cancer 5 years ago, so I have been a single parent of my 3 boys since that time.
My youngest son is 11, soon turning 12 and was diagnosed at the age of 8. I never had to deal with diabetes at that age so I am constantly amazed and proud of how well he adapted and give or take the occasional bad day his control and management is as good as mine despite me having a 20 year head start.
He is confident and active and knows that being diabetic is not a reason to not do anything he wants in life, nor does he put up with any kind of discrimination.
A quick example of the kind of kid he is usually. Last year, we were eating out in a restaurant and he used his pen to inject his bolus discreetly under the table. This was noticed by a 'not very pleasant' woman from the opposite table who came up to us and stated "I think you should do that in the bathroom, because there are people here who don't like needles!", and before I even had a chance to get my hackles up, my son calmly stated "I don't like your hair, perhaps you should eat your food in the toilets!"
Anyway the reason I am posting this now is that on Saturday he was at his friends house to watch a movie, and when he came back he went straight to his room and just seemed quieter than his usual boisterous self.
I left it a while and then checked on him, it was clear that he was upset and had been crying. So we had a talk and he had upset himself because his bs was high (11.2) despite taking a split bolus for the pizza he had eaten 3 hours before. Then he said that maybe he had forgotten to take the other half of his bolus. I asked him how much he thought he had taken and all his maths were good (as usual) and all logged on his phone.
FYI: My son is very capable of calculating his carb/insulin requirements. But I have a rule that if he thinks he needs to take a correction dose he must tell either me, his older brothers or a teacher before he does so. As a family we eat a moderately low carb diet (nothing excessive), but things like pizza and treats are allowed on occassion.
So I told him ok, it was no big deal, and we will wait an hour and then correct if needed. That's when he told me the reason he had been crying was because he thought I would be disappointed in him for making a mistake. We talked some more and I reassured him I will never be disappointed etc. and reminded him that sometimes bs will do crazy things even if we do everything right.
This was the first time I had ever seen him genuinely upset about his diabetes, sure he has been frustrated at times, but this kind of shocked me, normally he would just have just said that he had made a mistake and probably made a joke of it, before sorting himself out.
So yes, he is at that age, he's growing fast and sprouting hair, and I'm sure his reaction was down to hormones as much as anything else.
I would love to hear from other parents of Type 1s who can share any experiences of changes in their child's emotional and physiological reactions to their diabetes, just so I can be better prepared for when it happens!
Thanks for reading
[it wasn't meant to be so long]Max
The have twin girls of 6 (1 who's t1) and a 4 year old boy. I'm moving out in 8 years max...puberty+t1 sounds horrendous!x
