TYPE 1 DIABETES NEED HELP PLEASE

[tracyd]

HI EVERYONE

I'M NEW TO THE FORUM AND WAS HOPING I COULD GET SOME ADVICE FROM YOU EXPERTS OUT THERE.

MY ONE YEAR OLD SON WAS ADMITTED TO HOSPITAL LAST WEEK AND THE DOCTORS TOLD US IT WAS DIABETIC KETOACETOSIS AND THAT HE HAS TYPE 1 DIABETES. THIS CAME AS QUITE A SHOCK AND HE WAS QUITE POORLY AT THE TIME OBVIOUSLY, HOWEVER WE'RE NOW BACK AT HOME AND I'M JUST LOOKING FOR SOME TIPS ON RECIPES AND DIET CAN ANYONE HELP?

 

[sugar]

Poor you and poor you little boy! Hope he is feeling better. I was diagnosde aged 4, so can really only tell you what it is like from your sons point of view!
As Sarah says, "special diets" are not required, but like with all toddlers, encouraging a healthy diet. If your one year old is like my one year old..this isn't always easy! Nothing is forbidden...my parents were very good, and tried to tell me that I couldn't have chocolate...which was fine when I was little, but I did rebel terribly when I was older...I guess it is like being on any diet. Being told that you can't have something is sure to make you want it, if you know what I mean.
I am guessing that he is too little to understand what is going on, and in teh early days, I would find a healthy diet that he enjoys, and have that all week, and see how his insulin needs are. Remeber that milk has lots of carbohydrate in it, and will need to be included when considering his insulin needs. Once you have a feeling for how his food and insulin requiremnets change, then vary his diet a little.
The good news is that you now know what is going on. Diabetes can be difficult to manage, but you will learn how to cope and deal with things as you go along. There are 2 things that, in teh short term can go wrong. Having blood sugar that is too high, and having blood sugar that is too low. Knowing how to deal with, and recognising the extremes is very important, exspecially in a toddler, who probably won't be able to tell you themselves...but they do learn quickly! My little one is not diabetic, I am...and at 18 months, she knows to give me sugar if I looka t her in a funny way. My husband tells me how she will try and give me sweets if my blood sugar is low. She also tries to copy me doing my injections. Now, I am in no way suggesting that she could actually do either of these things for herself, but she thinks they are normal, and she copes.

I can ramble on for hours, which is no real use, but if there is something specific you would like advice about, or just to vent some frustration, you know where we are!
Take care,
Jill

 

[Rick]

Hi,

This seems to be all I ever write on this site but set up a diary of the food that you give your child against the amount of insulin given for that and what the reading was; a simple spreadsheet is all that I use, and then if you keep the diet relatively simple initially (as Sugar suggested) you'll hopefully be able to look at recent results and administer insulin with a bit more confidence.

Hope that helps,
Rick.

 

Hi Tracy,
It's such a shame for your little boy, and a tough thing for you to deal with too. The onset of Type 1 can be very mysterious - is there any history of it in your family?
I disagree with a couple of the previous posts though. There is so much starch and sugar in foods marketed for children these days that it's hardly surprising the incidence of childhood type 2 diabetes is skyrocketing.
I find that avoiding sweet and starchy carbohydrates keeps blood sugar stable and at normal nondiabetic levels. You would be doing your son a great favour if he simply never developed a taste for them. Another benefit is that his insulin doses would be greatly reduced, as would his risks of hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia.
There's lots to learn!

All the best, and stay in touch.

fergusc

 

[Abi]

You need to be aware that starchy as well as sweet foods raise blood glucose. But a child certainly needs a reasonable quantity of carbs for energy. As already mentioned you need to ensure tha carbs and the insulin balance. Severely restricting carbs would be more appropriate for adults but only then in certain situations

 

Abi,
It's something of a myth that you have to eat carbs for energy. The human body is perfectly capable of manufacturing its own glucose from protein and fat. It's been said before, but there are essential amino acids, essential proteins, but no such thing as an essential carbohydrate.
We have managed on very little carbohydrate for most of our history and only became dependant on it very recently.

fergusc

 

[Abi]

The carb debate is an interesting one. I can see the logic behind eating lower carb if you are struggling with control or even very low carb if weight is a problem- but very low carb may result in less glycogen and increased possibility of a very serious hypo. Also there have been cases of people with type one going into keto acidosis with a normal glucose after more or less completely eliminating carbs from the diet. Low levels of ketones on a low carb diet are not really a worry but normally insulin supresses fatty acid oxidation and excessive ketone production - if a person is injecting very low levels of insulin due to virtually no carb intake this process may not be supressed and ketone production may spiral out of control. I am aware that people have done well on very low carb diets but am also concerned that the above may be a risk- however small. I also believe that it would be very hard on a young child to exclude carbs while making a diet healthy, palatable and with sufficient calorific value. Having said this I have done lower carb ( about 30g per meal) myself which improved my control. I am not overweight and struggled to find alteratives at breakfast as I did not want fry ups every morning. Blood glucose control will always be a challenge to a type one due to other variables such as insulin absorption, climate, stress, hormones etc, and I now enjoy a more "normal" diet with accurate carb counting and matching the insulin although I am wary of eating very large amounts of carbs and injecting what I consider to be very large doses of insulin

I do agree that it is negligent to merely tell people to eat plenty of starch and a more individualised approach is needed

 

[fergusc]

Hi Abi,
An informed debate about the merits or otherwise of varying degrees of carbohydrate in the diet is exactly what's needed. I wish the NHS would give the issue some proper consideration.
It's not the first time I've heard someone say that ketoacidosis is a risk on a low carb diet. Or even that ketosis is somehow harmful. In fact the two are often confused.
Ketoacidosis is a condition arising from a deficiency of circulating insulin and has nothing whatsoever to do with a low carbohydrate diet. Ketosis of course arises from a shortage of carbohydrate when glucagon synthesises glucose from the oxidation of stored body fat.
A degree of ketosis is perfectly healthy, indeed essential, to successful maintainance of a healthy weight. Many body organs actually prefer ketones as a fuel.
You must agree that carbohydrates are a relatively recent innovation in the human diet. Little would have been eaten before the agricultural revolution 8-10,000 years ago and less still before the advent of fire. Protein and fat however have been staples for millions of years.
Also, the idea that a low carb diet leads to an increased possibility of a very serious hypo doesn't really bear scrutiny.
If much less insulin is required on a low carb diet, then the risks are correspondingly reduced. Dr. Richard Bernstein describes this as 'the law of small numbers'. You're right that insulin suppresses fatty acid oxidation though. This is one of the primary reasons that the current 'low-fat diet' fad actually makes people fatter.
I don't actually believe it's possible for a diabetic to achieve long-term normal blood sugar levels on the sort of carbohydrate based diet that DUK or the ADA recommend.

All the best,

Fergus

 

[Hannah]

Hi

I am new to this forum but just wanted to say hi and send lots of support your way!

I was diagnosed at the age of 4 which I see as quite luck as I can only ever remember eating carefully and having to inject, for me it is just part of every day life, although I would be fibbing if I didn't say that I get extremely hacked and very depressed some times with it all, you have to think though there are worse things you can have.

When I was growing up I remember the worst thing being sitting at the dinner table and getting upset when my brothers were all tucking into their cakes and I was offered an apple or yoghurt, not much fun when you are young and don't really understand why you have to eat the things your mu gives you which is different to the others.

I also remember getting very jealous at Christmas times when my brothers would get all their selection boxes and I didn't, again just didn't understand why.

I started doing my own injections when I was 8 years old for the simple reason I want to go away on school camp an couldn't do that if I couldn't do my own injectons!!

I rebelled terribly when I was a teenager thinking it wouldn't matter but it did! Obviously as I got older I was much more co-operative with my health.

All the best to you and your family


Hannah

 

[sugar]

I am interested in the carb debate....but I have a question. Tracey is asking about her little boy, and as the Mm of a child of a similar age, I am told that milk is important in the diet od infants. Now, I am the first to conceed that sometimes we can be advised to do things that are not the best for us, but that advice is so old....there has to be somrthing in it?? Milk has carbs....so a low carb diet may be difficult for a toddler?
Just a thought...it is good to hear that people achieve good control, on, or off carbs.