He's Off The Bottle At Last.

Khaleb is now 4.5 yrs and I took the plunge and (cold turkey) took him off the bottle. I'd tried a million times to do it gently and each time it just didn't work. I can't say Khaleb is drinking very much but being Winter here he probably doesn't need heaps of fluid. My biggest surprise was how much I needed to reduce his insulin and I've still had a 3.4 mmol today. I reduced his insulin initially by 2 units as that would cover the 20-25gm carbs he was getting from the milk but I have had to reduce his insulin by 4.5 units a day.

Diabetes has been with Khaleb through every milestone. When he started to crawl I made some big changes to his insulin and this has been the only other time I've needed to make some radical changes to move to the next stage.

Anyway, sometimes diabetes still really surprises me in what happens from some silly little change.

Don't worry, this has been a bit like a 12 step program.

noblehead said:

All good Jen, off the bottle and less insulin can only be a good thing for the lad!

Nigel

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Why is having less insulin good? He's slightly underweight (BMI 17) and a growing child. I just consider myself an artificial pancreas and supply what is needed. Last hba1c was 6.0% and all in the last 2 years have been under 7%.

Yep, Khaleb is pronounced just like Caleb. Had I known he had Down syndrome I would have given him a nice simple 3 letter name like Max or Tom.

As for school ... Khaleb will miss the Prep year due to the fact that he would be forced into a mainstream class and not provided an Aide for either his diabetes or learning problems. He'll then go into Grade 1 at a mainstream school that has a Special Education Unit attached. He will get a small class size and an Aide. In the meantime he attends an Early Learning Centre (partly at my expense) for 2 days X 5 hours. I still have to go up and give him insulin at lunch. It is not ideal and I had to fight hard and get the help of Disability Services to even find care for him. People are scared of litigation if something were to happen and diabetes isn't something that I can give a guarantee that all will be fine. In a year and a half he has only had 2 very minor hypos (Mid to high 3's) while at daycare.

I get 2 hours of respite care a week due to the fact that the lady who comes has a Husband with T1 diabetes.

As for the good a1c I can say that I don't face some of the problems that other parents face. I can have a larger degree of control on his diet most of the time. He never goes hungry and is never refused food but with carb counting and only having the one snack between meals he never strays too far out of the zone. We have issues at times with illness, exercise and certain foods (mainly pizza, of course) but not too often.