newly Diagnosed

hi there and welcome,

can you give us a little more info about what treatment regime she's on? Eg number of injections and types of insulin? and have you been taught about carbohydrates and how to adjust the insulin dose, or have they just said inject x amount at x time?
someone will be here in a minute to post up info for new members but in very basic terms, you need to match the dose of insulin to the carbs she eats. (eg If she's hypoing after her evening meal you can increase the carbs or reduce the pre-meal insulin dose; if she wants to snack in the day, she can eat non-carb snacks, or eat the carbs and match it with insulin)

there's a useful book you can use to help you understand carbs - Carbs and Cals - also comes as a phone app. Not sure if I'm allowed to link to it but you can google it.

and feel free to come back and ask us questions.

The basal / bolus regime which your daughter is on is designed to best mimic the pancreas. The Lantus is the slow acting insulin normally given once or twice daily which deals with the glucose that is drip fed into the blood by the liver. The novorapid ( bolus insulin/fast acting) is given at meal and snack times to deal with the carbohydrate content of the food. If you can let us know at what time of night the hypos occur and when the last novorapid at tea time is given, it may help us work out which insulin needs adjusting.

It is normally a good idea to give a small slow acting carb snack at bedtime especially if her bg is a little on the low side about 4/5, but ideally the background insulin should keep the blood fairly consistent, If you are needing to give more than about 10/15g of carb at bedtime, then it would suggest that the insulin needs some adjustment. Doing the nighttime test will highlight this.

As far as snacks are concerned, you can give non carb snacks at any time and in moderation these would not require any insulin. Some ideas are cheese, meat, chicken drumsticks, pepperoni, salmon flakes and sugar free jelly. Things like strawberries, rAspberries and cucumber are very low in carb, so again in small amounts may be given to your daughter without affecting her bg although you would need to test for this. Carb snacks can also be given but would require an injection of novo rapid to cover the carb content. Because it is early days, it might be better to stick to carbs at meal times only so you are only giving novorapid at mealtimes, this will probably help you achieve better control as you can better understand the affects of insulin given at breakfast, lunch and tea.

Novorpaid has a peaking time of around 2 / 2.5 hours and for most people has finished working after 3/4 hours. if bloods are falling or rising after 4 hours from the last injection, then it is likely to be the lantus that is wrong. I'm afraid this will all be down to trial and error, lots of blood testing and keeping records to refer back to.

I know that all of this sounds daunting, but by testing regularly and keeping records you should hopefully work out doses. As small children are creatures of habit and like to eat the same foods at the same time of day, you should hopefully see a pattern emerging.

Hi
I've been meaning to reply to this for a while now, so sorry for the delay. I have a 3 year old girl who is ALWAYS saying she's hungry, and largely I think that this is just boredom as she tends to eat well at mealtimes. If you think this might be the case with your daughter as well, one tip I can offer is sugar-free ice pops. it sounds crazy (esp at this time of year) but it usually satisfies Sylvie's desire for something to eat and has absolutely no effect on her BG levels. Another thing she will eat is peanuts, especially if I put them in a little pot for her. Little pots seem to please 3 year olds...
She's had type 1 for a year now and I've spent a lot of time trying to get her to eat really good meals so that we can avoid hunger between meals, it's hard work sometimes but I think it's worth it in the long run. You can in theory give extra injections for larger snacks or extra meals during the day but it all adds to the number of injections in the day etc etc, and you/she might not want to get into that just yet.
This might be useless to you but thought I'd share it anyway,

Best,
Caitlin

Hi My daughter is 5 years old was diagnossed last november age 4.
Leahs snacks are suger free jelly, sugar free tip tops, cheese strings we also roll ham up and give her pepper, cucmber cut up in to strips.
If she is really hungry and dnt want to give her insulin she will have 1 pure egg omellete with grated cheese.

Hi, My son is also three and we use the same snacks as others have listed above....blackcurrant sugar free jelly is a favourite! I just wanted to reply about the hypos at night. We had the same problem until our DSN suggested that it might be because he is so young, we give him tea early at 5 /5.30pm, which means there is a lot of hours between his last meal and his breaqkfast the next day. So now we give him tea at 5pm, then an additional snack of around 10g of carbs at 7pm before he goes to bed (usually a glass of milk and a rich tea biscuit) That has really worked well and we hardly ever get hypos at night any more. We have had to increase his tea time insulin to accomodate this - his ratio at tea is much lower so his bg is only about 5 at 7pm before the snack. This stops him being too high when we test him before bed. The other thing we have done is change the Levemir split so he has 2.5 units in the morning but only 1.5 at night. When we first started they advised us to just cut it in half and give the same amount morning and night but we found this works better. Anyway, I hope this helps - you might have tried it all already but I thought I'd share! Good luck,
Susie

how can we say someone has type 1 or type 2 diabetic? urgent please

javedjee77 said:

how can we say someone has type 1 or type 2 diabetic? urgent please

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Type 2 diabetes is where the pancreas does not work properly or where the patient has trouble using the insulin that it does produce. This is most often treated with diet and pills. Lots of people are walking around without knowing that they have type 2 diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes is where the pancreas produces no insulin at all and the patient has no choice but to provide it by injection. The patient will be left in no doubt that they have type 1.

there is a test to diagnose type1 or type 2?

Hi javedjee, I am not sure if you are asking for yourself or for someone in your family, but either way it is best to go to your doctor and talk over your concerns with him or her. Do you (or your family member) have symptoms you are concerned about? If you can give us a few more details someone on here should be able to give you a bit more advice.

javedjee77 said:

there is a test to diagnose type1 or type 2?

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Yes there are tests but they require apparatus. Your doctor has what is required.

What is the condition of the patient. There must be a reason that you are asking these questions.