Why do you think your child has type 1 diabetes?

[sugarless sue]

Please do not post all in capitals as this is considered as shouting on the internet ! It also makes it very difficult to read. Thank you.

 

[cazmumto4]

So sorry,i do it so i can see it didn't mean to shout!x

 

[cugila]

Hi Caz.

You can just use a larger print size when typing without all capitals. We are going cross-eyed here.... :wink:

If you click on the A symbol at the top right of the screen you can increase or decrease the size of the print on the forum so you can see it better. Hope that helps

 

[Shazza]

Hi Caz

I definetly didnt get bored with your post, im still learning about t1 as son just diagnosed 6 weeks ago, just wanted to say you have a lot on your plate, dont know how you cope .. but sounds like you do, well done it must be hard. I will look out for that programme id like to see that

 

[diabetesmum]

Hi All,
What an interesting thread this is for parents of Type 1 children!

My two girls are both Type 1. The elder was diagnosed at 8yrs in Jan 2003, the younger at 2yrs in 2004. There is no history of Type 1 in either side of the family, but there is definitely a history of autoimmune diseases eg. vitiligo, sarcoidosis, asthma. I believe there is something in the mix of the genes plus some environmental trigger, but who knows what that might be, I don't think we ever will. Older daughter was often ill as a toddler with repeated bouts of tonsillitis and glue ear, but little one has only had tonsillitis twice in her life and no glue ear, so no common history there. They have both had the MMR, so perhaps a link there?

I am quite persuaded by the beef protein theory - that exposure to cows milk in susceptible people leads their immune systems to attack their beta cells which are apparently very similar in form to the milk protein calls that they are intolerant to. I breastfed both my girls, for 14 months and 2 years respectively, but apparently that wouldn't have protected them as the beef protein from cows milk I drank (in tea etc) would have passed through into the breastmilk. So you can't win!

Although in some ways it would be nice to know what's 'caused' the Type 1, I don't think we ever will.
Best wishes
SUe

 

[cm1976]

Hi, My two children were diagnosed within a day of each other. My son at 4 and my daughter aged 6, that was back in May this year. My husband is type 1 so they probably had a predisposition to it. Having said that there is no one else in his family with it. I'm not really sure about a trigger, but my daughter had a stomach bug in February which led to pneumonia. My son had been fit and healthy right up to diagnosis. I sometimes think it may have been triggered by MMR jab but it probably wasn't. I know it won't help knowing, but it does bug me at times. I also have another child aged 17 months so the worry is always there that she may get it. I know there is nothing we can do to prevent that, but it is only natural as a parent to worry!
My sons starts school tomorrow so I'm now worrying about that too!!

Wow!! 2 diagnoses within a day of eachother - that must have been an absolute nightmare!! It was bad enough having 1 child diagnosed at 4!!

For us my son had a really easy natural labour and was breast fed till 9mnths and they say if ur born by section ur more likely to get it and breast fed babies are less likely to get it so goodness knows what wld have happened had I not breast fed or had natural delivery!!!

H was diagnosed at 4 after a really bad virus... he had been off school unwell for almost 4wks then went back tho still very exhausted which I put down to the throat infection and virus - Over the weekend he had been drinking a lot and weeing the bed thru the night a few times each night which caused me to put him back in pull ups as I assumed the amount he had been drinking was the obvious cause.... We had just told him I was pg too so I assumed that with the throat and the new baby he was attention seeking...

Anyway... At school on the monday he was really sad and his teacher called for me to collect him and that day his thirst was unbearable ... he had really dry flaky skin too.... I dosed him with calpol and as he wasnt eating I was feeding him starbursts!! Poor little thing - there's me making his sugar levels worse!!!! by adding more and more sugar! That night H was screaming for water and I got really angry.... I took him out of bed got him downstairs and nearly died when I saw the rash all over him! It was like the meningitis rash and we whisked him off to hospital where they started giving him atibiotics incase it was meningitis...

A few hours later they tested his wee and came back with the question ... is anyone in the family diabetic!!!

Nightmare!!! I sometimes think maybe it wld have been better if it was meningtis because that would have gone away and he's stuck with diabetes for life!!

Doctors did say he may have had Parvovirus which sometimes presents with that type of rash which at the time scared me cos I was in early pg... And with hindsight maybe it was that as we ended up losing the baby at term....

So for me I blame the virus - whatever it was .... tho looking back at his diet as a young child he barely ate enough to keepa sparrow alive ever since first being weaned....by comparison to my other 2 children who eat like there's no tomorrow - I think he just regulated the intake of food to cover the amount of insulin he was just about producing and the bad virus tipped him over the edge!1


My SIL has type 1 too and she was diagnosed at 21 jst after having chicken pox virus....

 

[cm1976]

I really don't know how Jess got diabetes or exactly when it started. We have no family history of diabetes nor do I know anyone who has either type of diabetes so it was quite a shock and learning curve, I knew absolutely nothing about it in the beginning.

Jess was 4 and had started school in the september. I remember her being quite tired and unable to walk very far without wanting to be picked up and carried. I remember walking home from school (around the middle of September) and she couldn't make the 10 minute walk home without wanting to be carried. I remember telling her that she is a big girl and should be able to walk home like all the other children. I thought that she was just very tired from school, she had been at school for only the mornings in the first few weeks and now she had moved onto a full school day. I put the tiredness down to her not being used to a busy school day.

At the same time I noticed that she was thinning out, her face had lost all that toddler chubbiness. But I thought that was simply her getting older and thinning out as she lost her baby fat. She was also becoming a fussier eater, something she never had a problem with in the past. But my son is a fussy eater so I just assumed that this is how she was going to be too.

Then we both got a flu-like virus and she took about a week off school. She was full of head cold and generally feeling miserable, she started drinking quite a lot of fluids but I put that down to having a head cold and needing more fluids. I was also feeling pretty miserable but after about 5 days we both seemed to be getting much better.

Jess's thirst didn't go away though, she got thirstier. I sent her back to school on the Monday as she seemed to be over the virus, although still easily tired and quite thirsty. The teacher found her crying in the girls toilets and phoned me, I collected her from school thinking that perhaps she needed a few more days to get over the virus. I was also unsure whether perhaps she was finding school difficult because some times during the day she seemed to be full of energy and very happy as though nothing was wrong with her and then at other times she couldn't muster energy for anything.

I made an appointment for the doctor because I was getting concerned about her drinking so much and she had started wetting the bed overnight. I had taken her off drinking squash (thinking perhaps it was the taste of it that she liked too much) and put her onto drinking water. She generally doesn't like water but was drinking it in huge quantities which is unusual for her. I had no idea that this was a symptom of diabetes.

Our Dr's appointment was for the following day and that evening she started vomiting. I put it down to her not being completely over the bug yet and as we were seeing the Dr the next morning I left it. She didn't have a temperature. Looking back now I can't believe how stupid I was not to put it all together. Luckily our GP immediately recognised the symptoms and did a keytone and BG test. Keytones showed very high and BG was off the scale. She packed us straight off to hospital. Jess didn't have ketoacidosis yet, we were lucky. They put her onto a drip as she was getting dehydrated and started insulin injections the next morning. Almost immediately her appetite returned and I've never seem a small child eat so much! The change in her was almost immediate, the excessive drinking stopped, she was back to her happy self. She was still quite tired for a few days but soon she was buzzing around, she has always been a very energetic child.

Initially I thought it was the virus that caused her diabetes. But now when I look back I think she was showing symptoms before she got the virus. So I really don't know what caused it, it could have been anything.

Sophia this sounds so much like how my sons symtoms went at the exact same age!! lol...Except for ending up going into hosp due to the rash he developed! And yes the appetite after diagnosis was unbeleivable!

 

[kelly8]

Hi all, Well my baby was diagnosed type 1 diabetic bout a month ago and is only 10 months old. He is still breastfed, had a normal delivery, has not had his mmr jab, and no one in mine or his dads family has any form of diabetes! So it has come from no were, he has never being ill not even with a cold but has had thrush alot! He is my only child and this has come as a massive shock to us and we are now just getting on with things as there is no point in cring over spilt milk is there. Thanks kelly x

 

[Heidi]

Hey,

Our daughter was diagnosed aged 9, 4 years ago. My husbands brother is T1, when she was 9 months old she had croup and a viral cold as did her brother who is two years older, both untreated for this and then a month later she developed viral meningitis.. When she was diagnosed we were told that no-one really knows what causes T1 yet, could be T1 is genetic and passed down through father's line or caused by a Virus which affects pancreas function. My husbands brother has 3 children, none of whom are diabetic, there are a further 6 from same generation as our daughter who aren't. We do have 2 cases of Lupus which is an auto immune disorder in my husbands sister and niece (husbands brothers daughter).

If T1 doesn't have a genetic connection then why when you fill in medical forms are you asked if there's a history of diabetes in yor family?

Also there are older generations who are diagnosed T1 after illness which leads to the link of the virus affecting the pancreas.

I don't think we will ever know, all we know is that her pancreas is broken and we cannot change that so onwards and upwards.

It is hard sometimes, I wish it was me and not my daughter so she could have a carefree childhood, now we've entered the teenage years her health is not at the forefront of her mind, for me it is mine.

 

[Theunicornlady]

My daughter was always getting chest problems as a child - she would literally get over an infection, go back to school and be back to square one that night. I was tearing my hair out because she couldn't stay in school longer than 3 weeks, until she was put on inhalers. She came off them before her 10th birthday because she no longer needed them.

Without going into too much detail (because its still all too painful), between Sept 07 and Mar 08, my daughter displayed various symptoms of diabetes and we missed them all. They were random and then after diagnosis, they became clear. She was admitted to hospital with severe DKA and was on the verge of complete organ failure the night of diagnosis, hence why its very painful to think about.

There is no family history other than a cousin who had T1 - it was rife in his Mother's family, while his Dad's family (mine) had none. My Grandma had T2, brought on by a stroke. I was not told about the entovirus link in the consultant's room, the bbc website reported the results of the 25 year study into it.

I firmly believe she had the entovirus for several months and the tummy pains she complained of were her beta cells being destroyed. Diabetes has been a complete blessing for her healthwise though. Since she started injecting insulin, my daughter has been really healthy. She had one sicky bug which got her off school for a week, but other than that, she has been in good health.

 

[hismom]

my son only had the first mmr jab so I dont think his was linked to that but he did have possible german measles at 5 months old. He has had glue ear from birth until he was around 8. He also always seemed to have a cold and was put on inhalers once. My husband has a cousin with type 1 but no-one else has type 1. My grandmother had type 2 and 1 of her dauhters also has type 2. We have been told there isn a genetic link. My son went through a lot of emotional upset just before he started secondary school until the february after that. He was bullied severely ,he witnessed a death,his grandmother passed away then he was a front seat passenger in a car that rolled onto its roof. I actually believe that it was all the stress but cant prove it. He was diagnosed 20 months after the accident. Just before the diagnosis he caught a cold which wouldnt go,then got a chest infection and on top of that a perforated eardrum.

 

[tlettou]

My daughter was diagnosed w T1 at 9yrs old. There are a couple of relatives on her father's side who have T1 and no one on my side. It's interesting that several people mentioned molluscum contagiosum because my daughter has had this on her thighs for several years and we tried all sorts of topical creams including cortisone. It finally started to fade this year but I wonder if there's any connection.... Also, my daughter has been a chronic asthmatic since she was very little and has had all sorts of oral steroids...another possible cause? In addition, I bought a house when she was 6yrs old and it turns out that we have a constant water problem in the basement and high levels of mold as a result...I've always wondered if this exposure to mold spores may have weakened her system and cause the problem. I know that researchers think that a virus may be the cause but if it is, where does it originate and why does it only affect certain people (poor immune systems?) (And I hope that my 10 yr old son doesn't develop T1) We would love to have the mystery solved and, God willing, a possible cure as a result. (Wondering in Vermont, USA)