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Daughter newly diagnosed

MumEve

Member
Messages
10
Hi.
My daughter aged 15 was diagnosed with diabetes last week. Due to her complex medical needs they can’t say which. She’s on insulin before each meal and a different one at 8pm She also has to regularly check her glucose level before and after meals check and at bedtime.
I am at a loss to how to help her. I am struggling to get my head around it and keep hoping it will settle down and maybe go.
Any advice on how to deal with this all.


Thank you #Confused
 
Hugs. The first thing is to get an accurate diagnosis, different types of diabetes are treated differently. I am assuming she will be type 1 at her age. If she is on other medications, can you tell us what they are. Read around the site and ask lots of questions. Hopefully you will get lots of advice.
 

Thank you. They have said it’s like type1 but due to the complexity of her medical needs they don’t want to say. They feel it’s best to treat it as type1 but take the rest into consideration.
I just wish I could do something more x
 
MumEve said:
Thank you. They have said it’s like type1 but due to the complexity of her medical needs they don’t want to say. They feel it’s best to treat it as type1 but take the rest into consideration.
I just wish I could do something more x
Click to expand...

Hi MumEve,
You have already done something by finding these forums.You will get great advice and support from the Type1's here plus there are smaller forums for the different variations on Type 1.

Unfortunately if it is Type 1, then just like Type 2 it won't just go away.
Since I am a Type 2 , I will tag in a Type 1 Moderator @Juicyj
 
@MumEve sounds like you are dazed and confused and need a break. Do your daughter’s other needs mean she cannot understand her diabetes diagnosis? Does she have complex eating habits? What sort of numbers are you seeing?
Diabetes of any type is a pain but we can control it, assuming we understand it and pay attention.
 

Thank you. No she’s able to understand her diabetic diagnosis. It’s just a lot on top of the other ones she has.
She doesn’t have any eating habits. Apart from being autistic and having selected foods she likes. Her numbers are between 20-30 and occasional under 20. Thank you
️
 
Well with numbers that high the insulin is a good thing.
Wishing you both the best for getting to grips with this and do ask any questions.
 
Well @MumEve, I am not surprised you are trying to get your head around your daughter's diabetes diagnosis at this stage. That both of you are. Which type it is, and the different types can even confuse medical professionals at times! And they need to run different tests to find out which it is, which I am guessing is what is happening with your daughter at the moment.

There is an excellent The Guardian article from March 1 2018 on the topic, written by Nicola Davis, which I think is very good, which draws on the Swedish study on the 5 different subgroups of diabetes that I personally believe to be an excellent way to categorise the different kinds of diabetes, and use it myself (and hope it comes into more popular use! ).

It looks like, from what you are saying your medical professionals said, that your daughter shows aspects of both type 1 and type 2, which is autoimmune and insulin resistant at the same time. And as your daughter is a young adult, it is difficult for them to get the diagnosis streamlined at the moment. (This is just my assumption of course.) Or maybe they were not able to communicate it clearly to you? (This happens!)

Anyway, I will cut and paste the bit that might be interesting to you and your daughter below:

"The team say the findings show that type 1 diabetes and a late-onset autoimmune form of diabetes can be grouped together as one form, dubbed severe autoimmune diabetes.

However the researchers say what would generally have been called “type 2” diabetes in fact encompasses four categories, two of which are severe forms of the disease.

One, dubbed severe insulin-deficient diabetes, shows similar features to the autoimmune group such as relatively low body mass index (BMI), lack of insulin and early onset, but did not have telltale antibodies indicating an autoimmune disease. Diabetic eye disease was most common in this group.

While this group had the highest proportion of patients on the drug metformin, Groop said this was not the optimum treatment. “They clearly need insulin very soon, almost as much as ‘type 1’,” he said.

The other severe category, called severe insulin-resistant diabetes, is linked to obesity and shows a strong tendency for the body’s cells not to respond to insulin, with these patients showing the highest likelihood of having liver disease, chronic kidney disease, and diabetic kidney disease. This group had a low proportion of patients taking metformin, although the authors say they would be expected to benefit the most from the drug.

The two other categories are mild forms of the disease with one of them, known as mild obesity-related diabetes, linked to high BMI and the other, mild age-related diabetes, generally seen in older patients. The team say both categories can be managed with metformin and lifestyle advice.

“Diabetes is not the grey mass we have been calling type 2 – there are really subsets of the disease that require different treatment,” said Groop.

The categories were discovered by considering six different metrics, including a measure of blood glucose control, age at diagnosis, BMI, the presence of certain antibodies linked to autoimmune diabetes, and a measure of insulin sensitivity."

I hope this info helps!
 
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