hi everyone and hope you are all keeping well. My first post on the forum since learning my darling little girl had been diagnosed with T1D. Been just over a week since diagnosis and emotions have been following a similar pattern to her blood sugar levels, but staying strong and so proud of her. The injections are the hardest part and seeing the bruises on her little legs just crushes me as it goes against all instinct as a parent. If anyone has any suggestions on how to deal with this with such a young child it would be hugely appreciated. Thanks again.
Dad of 4 year old daughter with new T1D
- Thread starter craig_m
- Start Date
-
- Tags
- child coping injections
- Messages
- 4,805
- Type of diabetes
- Type 1
- Treatment type
- Pump
- Dislikes
-
mean people , gardening , dishonest people , and war.
why can't everyone get on........
Hi @craig_m
welcome to the forum !!
as a parent it will be a devastating blow to see your child going through this -- but your daughter will be a tough little cookie and she will adapt and take it in her stride.
I would suggest you get in touch with jdrf https://jdrf.org.uk/ they have a great bunch of help for newly diagnosed young children.
it is hard at first because the whole family routine has been thrown out the window,
try and be kind to yourselves -- it is not your fault -- your daughter will adapt -- so you need to try your best to do 2 things simultaneously -- 1 -- live each day as it comes and 2 -- remember it is a marathon race you are running in
( those 2 don't always go together that well but if you can do the both at once you will have things sorted.)
all the best !!!!!!!!
welcome to the forum !!
as a parent it will be a devastating blow to see your child going through this -- but your daughter will be a tough little cookie and she will adapt and take it in her stride.
I would suggest you get in touch with jdrf https://jdrf.org.uk/ they have a great bunch of help for newly diagnosed young children.
it is hard at first because the whole family routine has been thrown out the window,
try and be kind to yourselves -- it is not your fault -- your daughter will adapt -- so you need to try your best to do 2 things simultaneously -- 1 -- live each day as it comes and 2 -- remember it is a marathon race you are running in
( those 2 don't always go together that well but if you can do the both at once you will have things sorted.)
all the best !!!!!!!!
SockFiddler
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 623
- Type of diabetes
- Type 2
- Treatment type
- Tablets (oral)
Hey @craig_m and welcome to the forum.
Firstly, take a breath. Everything is okay. It's stressful and upsetting, and the future just got really cloudy, but in this exact moment your daughter is okay. She's doing fine and you need to remember that.
Secondly, this is an excellent place to learn about managing your child's diabetes and there are loads of threads by parents who have found themselves in your situation. Do feel free to reach out to them, to share worries, information, experiences and so on with them. A recent thread by someone in a similar situation to you can be found here:
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/newly-diagnosed-6yr-old.123933/
Thirdly, in my signature there is a link to a wealth of information about securing support for you and your family, from your needs as a carer to financial, legal and benefits support. Read it when you have time - there's no hurry at all.
It's going to be a bit of a rough ride at first, but you'll be amazed at how fast you come to terms with this. Parents have an incredible capacity to normalise and carry on, even in the worst of circumstances. You're doing the right thing, though - getting in touch with others, reading, asking, learning.
Your daughter is going to be okay - and so will you.
Much love to your family,
Sock x
Firstly, take a breath. Everything is okay. It's stressful and upsetting, and the future just got really cloudy, but in this exact moment your daughter is okay. She's doing fine and you need to remember that.
Secondly, this is an excellent place to learn about managing your child's diabetes and there are loads of threads by parents who have found themselves in your situation. Do feel free to reach out to them, to share worries, information, experiences and so on with them. A recent thread by someone in a similar situation to you can be found here:
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/newly-diagnosed-6yr-old.123933/
Thirdly, in my signature there is a link to a wealth of information about securing support for you and your family, from your needs as a carer to financial, legal and benefits support. Read it when you have time - there's no hurry at all.
It's going to be a bit of a rough ride at first, but you'll be amazed at how fast you come to terms with this. Parents have an incredible capacity to normalise and carry on, even in the worst of circumstances. You're doing the right thing, though - getting in touch with others, reading, asking, learning.
Your daughter is going to be okay - and so will you.
Much love to your family,
Sock x
therower
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 3,922
- Type of diabetes
- Type 1
- Treatment type
- Insulin
Hi @craig_m . Welcome to the forum. So sorry to hear about your little girl, but as you will find out things are not as bad as they might seem.
I could give lots of advice but you don't need it yet. One bit of advice is learn a little and often.
Diabetes thrives on negativity and it will drag everyone down if it gets the chance. What it has very little control over is positivity .
Don't make an enemy of it but learn to embrace it, make diabetes the reason you all go for a long walk on a Sunday afternoon, make it the reason you follow a healthy diet, try in years to come to make it the reason why your daughter realises she can climb any mountain.
As for the bruising, it's a tricky one, I'm assuming that someone is doing the injections?
Over my 27 yrs I've let people inject me, solely for fun, educational and curiosity reasons. I can honestly admit that when I've been injected by someone else it feels uncomfortable at least and I would say probably hurts as well and on occasion has left bruising. Injecting requires confidence, any dithering or fear just doesn't help, it's an art form that comes with practice.
A bit like the Nike motto just do it.
Let us know how things go and good luck to all of you.
I could give lots of advice but you don't need it yet. One bit of advice is learn a little and often.
Diabetes thrives on negativity and it will drag everyone down if it gets the chance. What it has very little control over is positivity .
Don't make an enemy of it but learn to embrace it, make diabetes the reason you all go for a long walk on a Sunday afternoon, make it the reason you follow a healthy diet, try in years to come to make it the reason why your daughter realises she can climb any mountain.
As for the bruising, it's a tricky one, I'm assuming that someone is doing the injections?
Over my 27 yrs I've let people inject me, solely for fun, educational and curiosity reasons. I can honestly admit that when I've been injected by someone else it feels uncomfortable at least and I would say probably hurts as well and on occasion has left bruising. Injecting requires confidence, any dithering or fear just doesn't help, it's an art form that comes with practice.
A bit like the Nike motto just do it.
Let us know how things go and good luck to all of you.
It can be overwhelming at the start, and certainly contnues to pose challenges even with a bit of experience, but you might take some comfort from knowing that the vast majority of us go on to lead full happy lives with relatively little restrictions - mainly just paying attention to food.
I don't know if your docs have mentioned continuous glucose monitoring yet. Unfortunately it's not on the NHS yet, although if certain criterion are met, some hospitals do make it available, especially for kids, so might be worthwhile asking them about it.
A small sensor is placed on the arm or stomach and measures sugar levels constantly so you can get a much clearer idea of where blood sugar has been over the last few hours and that gives you a lot more clues about where it's heading.
So, if your wee one's blood sugar is dropping, she's too young to be aware of it, and you'll maybe miss it if you're only testing every few hours, but if you've got a graph in front if you showing it's sliding sharply towards 4 you can step in and stop it with 5 or 10g before it gets too low. It basically levels the playing field in an unpredictable game.
Dexcom and Medtronic both have alarms which ring if levels go too low or high. There's also Freestyle Libre which doesn't have alarms yet but is still very useful.
Libre is about £100 per month, dexcom can work out about the same if a few tweaks involving restarting the sensor are used, but if not costs about £200 pm, and there's a transmitter to buy every so often too.
There's plenty of threads about them which a search will pull out.
I don't know if your docs have mentioned continuous glucose monitoring yet. Unfortunately it's not on the NHS yet, although if certain criterion are met, some hospitals do make it available, especially for kids, so might be worthwhile asking them about it.
A small sensor is placed on the arm or stomach and measures sugar levels constantly so you can get a much clearer idea of where blood sugar has been over the last few hours and that gives you a lot more clues about where it's heading.
So, if your wee one's blood sugar is dropping, she's too young to be aware of it, and you'll maybe miss it if you're only testing every few hours, but if you've got a graph in front if you showing it's sliding sharply towards 4 you can step in and stop it with 5 or 10g before it gets too low. It basically levels the playing field in an unpredictable game.
Dexcom and Medtronic both have alarms which ring if levels go too low or high. There's also Freestyle Libre which doesn't have alarms yet but is still very useful.
Libre is about £100 per month, dexcom can work out about the same if a few tweaks involving restarting the sensor are used, but if not costs about £200 pm, and there's a transmitter to buy every so often too.
There's plenty of threads about them which a search will pull out.
Hi Craig
I feel your pain totally as my daughter was diagnosed just before her fourth birthday and yes its absolutely shattering to see our babies in pain and also injecting, but I will say it does get better something I learned quite quickly was not to make a big deal out of it and to try and get her to help do the blood test and injections, my little one is now quite the injector and will happily do it herself (with me watching of course) I
its a hard illness to grasp and I'm still learning stuff everyday even though we are only 6 months in feels like a ;life time. it does get better or so I'm told so chin up and always remember we are all in this together.
I feel your pain totally as my daughter was diagnosed just before her fourth birthday and yes its absolutely shattering to see our babies in pain and also injecting, but I will say it does get better something I learned quite quickly was not to make a big deal out of it and to try and get her to help do the blood test and injections, my little one is now quite the injector and will happily do it herself (with me watching of course) I
its a hard illness to grasp and I'm still learning stuff everyday even though we are only 6 months in feels like a ;life time. it does get better or so I'm told so chin up and always remember we are all in this together.
Hi, thank you all for your advice and support.
It does seem that her Glucose levels shift very quickly and with no symptoms (I.e below 3 and up to 12) so I am thinking this is where the continuous glucose meter is going to help.
Hopefully all down to too high a ratio and we can get under control. I guess we are just terrified of missing signs of Hypo as we're yet to witness this.
It does seem that her Glucose levels shift very quickly and with no symptoms (I.e below 3 and up to 12) so I am thinking this is where the continuous glucose meter is going to help.
Hopefully all down to too high a ratio and we can get under control. I guess we are just terrified of missing signs of Hypo as we're yet to witness this.
Hi,
Just a little message to say that I am in a similar boat to you. My 4 year old little girl was diagnosed on Thursday. With the injections she started screaming and hiding in a corner, it broke my heart. Now we are 5 days in and she likes to pick her injection site. I found that giving her control helped, like asking which finger we should use and where we need to inject. I know that all children are different, but i explained a little to her, i tell her that her pancreas falls asleep and the injection is to wake it up. Not accurate, but its a level she can understand. Kids are so adaptable, they really amaze me sometimes.
hope you all are well
Just a little message to say that I am in a similar boat to you. My 4 year old little girl was diagnosed on Thursday. With the injections she started screaming and hiding in a corner, it broke my heart. Now we are 5 days in and she likes to pick her injection site. I found that giving her control helped, like asking which finger we should use and where we need to inject. I know that all children are different, but i explained a little to her, i tell her that her pancreas falls asleep and the injection is to wake it up. Not accurate, but its a level she can understand. Kids are so adaptable, they really amaze me sometimes.
hope you all are well
