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Please help a confused mum ....

A

AnneK

Active Member
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I hope someone may be able to advise me. My son was diagnoised with Type 1 in April this year. My hubby is in the army and we are based in Germany. All our care has been via the German system which has been second to none. Currently as he is honeymooning he only inject 3 times a day with Humilin!! No basal is used yet. For the past 10 days however my son has been having spikes at 10 am which is his snack time (between 200 and 300 which i believe is between 11mmol and 16.6 mmol) I have increased his Insulin units to try and correct this but to no avail. This means my son has to forfeit his snack at 10. I've tried changing his breakfast but nothing changes. The rest of the day his blood sugars are between the aceptable 60 - 160. He is back at hospital on thursday for his HBa1C so i know we will be advised accordingly. Sometimes i just worry i'm getting it all wrong. It's still a struggle for me coping with all this.

Thanks for sparing your time to read this

Anne
 
Re: 10am Spikes

AnneK,

I think you need to talk to your son's doctor/care team as soon as possible. As a type 1 myself, I am not aware of anybody not using basal insulin as a long acting insulin. This is a background insulin usually given once a day (sometimes twice) to cover a 24hr period. I would think that your son's short acting insulin has started to fade by 10pm, and with no basal insulin in the body to cover between injections, blood glucose begins to climb. 16.6 mmol is not good long term, and as he has been diabetic since April, it is time to speak to someone. Best wishes!

Nigel
 
Re: 10am Spikes

noblehead said:
AnneK,

I think you need to talk to your son's doctor/care team as soon as possible. As a type 1 myself, I am not aware of anybody not using basal insulin as a long acting insulin. This is a background insulin usually given once a day (sometimes twice) to cover a 24hr period. I would think that your son's short acting insulin has started to fade by 10pm, and with no basal insulin in the body to cover between injections, blood glucose begins to climb. 16.6 mmol is not good long term, and as he has been diabetic since April, it is time to speak to someone. Best wishes!

Nigel
Click to expand...

During the Honeymoon period it's not unreasonable to be relaxed about background insulin. Within a short period of time he'll probably be on it anyway.

As for the existing problem, what kind of snack is he having?
 
Thanks Nigel

We are at the hospital on Thursday and they look through his diary. His diabetes was found by accident he went into hosptal as he's had a severe allergic reaction and was in anaphalaxis when they did blood tests they discovered blood sugar levels of over 600. They did they oral glucose test to confirm diagnosis which again put his blood sugars at over 600. However they said as he was very early staged (no symptoms showing) he wasn't in need of basal insulin.

I still find it all very confusing and hopefully with him returning to school tomorrow the extra exercise will also help control his blood sugar levels.
 
Hi AnneK,
I too am a mother of a 10yr old T1 boy, Andrew was diagnosed 3 1/2yrs ago. He is now on basal bolus being Levimir as his background and humalog with meals and we carb count. This has worked out to be a far better way to control his diabetes and give him the freedom to eat when and almost what he wants.
Perhaps your son is eating too many carbs at his 10am snack time and its these that are pushing up the numbers later on. I can only suggest a lighter snack which is fewer in carbs. But to be honest the best solution would be to take to his health care team and see if a new regime can be worked out. Honeymoon periods are often short for newly diagnosed children and your son may be coming out of his hence, the spikes in bs.
Good luck and sorry i haven't all the answers for you, children are all different, but i'm sure in the future he will be put on to the basal bolus regime.
Suzi x
 
Hi Lion Rampant

He's not getting any snacks at 10am as his bs level is to high. When able to have it he usually has a snack that is no more than 10g of carbohydrate. Sometimes he will have a diabetic snack (i know not necessary but he likes some of them) or he'll have an oatibix bar.

Breakfast is usually toast or cereal. These breakfasts have not been an issue until now.

He takes insulin relevant to the carbohydrate and his morning injection is about 4 units, as is lunch and dinner which includes a snack at 10ish and again at 3.30ish

Sometimes i wonder if i will ever get the hang of it.

His first HBa1C was 7.4 they expect it to be higher this time and have told me this is the norm.
 
Oh wait now I see. He's too high to get the snack. Right.

Sounds like the dawn phenomenon is having a lasting effect. DP is the result of the body releasing glucose to help you "start up" in the morning, unfortunately in diabetics it can cause sugar spikes. It may be that his morning injection is getting eaten up by that and his breakfast combined, so by snack time he's starting to run out. I'm not entirely sure what the correct reaction is here, although obviously increasing his morning dose further may help.

It's likely they'll put him on a background insulin in the near future.

P.S. I have to say it sounds like he has a good care team, so you're very lucky in that respect. :D
 
AnneK,

Thursday may be a good time to discuss all your concerns. Write down what you would like to ask, so that you don't forget; I know from experience you can have a long list of things to say in your head, but come the day they are forgotten, and as usual you remember after the event.

Suzi offers some good advice, and being a mother of a type 1 of 3 yrs, will know by experience the ups and downs of adolescent diabetes. Again I hope all goes well ! :)

Hope your husband comes back safe and well from his tour of duty. Regards.

Nigel
 
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