Anonymous Question 18 year old son struggling & wetting the bed

[Anonymous Question]

Anonymous question submitted:

My 18 year Son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was 15. We were then living in New Zealand. We have been back in the UK for 3 years now and he has no trust in his Diabetic GP or Nurse and has refused to go to the clinics for a year. I feel this is due to them telling him at some point they will have to take blood tests which scares him and they keep changing his insulin units so he is confused and dosnt know where he is with it all.

I feel the Nurse has let him down as she has not tried to resolve the issue with him. I cannot physically get him to go and have asked the nurse to have a one on one session with him and all she said was i thought he trusted me and have not heard from her since. I am worried about him as sometimes he wont eat he drinks a lot of fluids. He wets the bed at night regularly as he goes into very deep sleeps and is difficult to wake up in a morning.

He works a 40 hour week and is active. I am sure he is embarrased with the bed wetting and i have read forums which confuse me to what to do for the best and dont want to start dabbling in changing his insulin without professional advice. I feel the GPs and Nurse in this area are a wash out and they will just say needs to come and see us which i know he wont do. Any advice is gratefully accepted.

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[Spiker]

The bed wetting and drinking lots of fluids and torpor suggest he is managing his diabetes very badly or not at all, as these are the symptoms of undiagnosed, untreated diabetics.

If he has a fear of blood tests, most hospital blood tests now are just fingerprick tests, not venous blood draws. Presumably he does fingerprick tests several times a day? Well he should do.

If he has severe depression or motivational problems unfortunately that is all too common in diabetics and particularly young diabetics. I don't think it's fair to blame the DSN. They don't normally have any psychological training, their job really is to provide education rather than therapy. But the DSN should be able to refer your son for therapy or counselling.

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[Flowerpot]

Could you encourage your son to go to a young adults clinic? There are various hospitals which run transition clinics some up to about 21 years of age where they are very good at encouraging people through this difficult time whilst getting a grip on controlling their diabetes. You are not treated like a child and maybe this approach would help him.

Is his lack of trust of the nurse and diabetes GP purely down to his fear of blood tests? I went through a period of refusing to attend clinics and put the reason down to hating blood tests. The reality was I hated the thought of the results but blaming the needles seemed a believable reason. I was well aware at 18 that I wasn't managing my diabetes and I was also well aware that I was now classed as an adult and nobody could make me do anything.

It is a really difficult time moving into the adult world but there is some great help out there. I would try to find out what clinics are available to him and encourage him to think about seeing someone different to see if a new approach will help. I wish you good luck.