# How was your child diagnosed



## NI-Bookworm (Mar 5, 2015)

Hi
As we had a bg machine at home, and I spotted the signs we done a reading and my sons BG was 35. So a visit to A&E and we were admitted straight away for 2 days.

My wee niece (7yo) had a urine infection and a sample showed ketones.  They done a finger prick test which was 6, then arranged for a fasting blood sample.  Results are due tomorrow.

She has symptoms such as thirst, bed wetting and a sore tummy.

If the test comes back tomorrow (all fingers are crossed that it is negative) positive do they start the treatment straight away??


Thanks


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## Andy HB (Mar 8, 2015)

I hope your niece is fine. That finger prick test doesn't sound bad to me given that she already had an infection. I know that I am not a doctor but I would also put the thirst, bed wetting and tummy ache down to the infection as well. Finally, I understand that ketones can be produced by anyone.

So, I think there is a good chance that nothing, diabetes wise, was up.  I hope that was the case.

Andy


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## NI-Bookworm (Mar 8, 2015)

Hi Andy 

Thankfully she got the all clear.  

We all thought it was the doctor being over cautious (which is great!!!) but as the week went on we started to look into every symptom!

As a parent I still struggle watching my son (who is coping really well) and hate hearing about other kids getting diagnosed.  There has been a real cluster of cases in our area. 5 kids in one week.


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## Sally71 (Mar 8, 2015)

I think your niece will be fine - if she was developing diabetes I think her BG would be a lot higher than 6!

All the other symptoms are probably due to the infection.  Ketones are a normal byproduct of your body metabolising fat, children who are ill generally go off their food a bit so that's why the ketones will be there.  They are only dangerous if you don't have enough insulin present to deal with them and they build up to high levels.

When my daughter was little she used to smell of ketones every time she had a cold!  This made me slightly anxious at first but the smell always went away again when she got better so I learned not to worry about it.  Then on the night of her 6th birthday she went down with a really nasty virus that lasted a week, and even after she recovered the ketone smell never went away; at 8am her breath smelt as if she had just troughed a large bag of Haribos when she had eaten nothing since the evening before.  This made me worried but as she seemed fine otherwise I decided just to keep an eye on her and not panic.  Even my mum (also T1) told me I was worrying too much!  Then daughter started getting hungry and tired and a bit thin, but that could just be a growth spurt so again I didn't take too much notice.  She was also drinking lots but we didn't pick up on that one at all, just thought she was being a greedy guts with the apple juice, if we gave her water instead she didn't drink it so quickly.

The crunch came after we went to a family party and everyone was commenting on how skinny she was, also she necked a couple of glasses of water faster than she would normally drink apple juice - alarm bells ringing then!  The next day she just lay on the settee and couldn't even be bothered to decide what to watch on tv, and the day after that ate four whole Weetabix for breakfast...  Saw GP on a Thursday.  He clearly thought there wasn't much wrong with her and that I was just a neurotic mum, did a urine test which he said was normal, but then just to be in the safe side he referred her for a full battery of blood tests.  He said it had to be fasting so we had to wait another few days for that.  Blood test was done the following Tuesday and daughter's health had started to decline rapidly by then, she would hardly eat anything other than yogurt because nothing tasted right.  On Wednesday morning she was so weak she could hardly stand up, never mind walk, so when GP called her back in my hubby had to carry her everywhere.  Fasting blood sugar was 18, finger prick test off the scale, urine now full of sugar and ketones.  She was going into DKA so we had to rush her into hospital.  Hospital lab test came back with a BG of 46!  She was in hospital for 3 days, but I think if we'd waited one day longer she would have gone into a coma and been in intensive care.

I will always regret not taking her to the doctor a bit sooner, or arguing a bit more loudly about getting blood tests done more quickly; at the time I didn't really know about DKA though; and I do tend to worry too much and most illnesses turn out to be nothing serious - right up until the very last few days I was still hoping that I might be wrong!  I have since learned from a DSN that a fasting test is correct for diagnosing type 2 (which is what GPs see most of), but for a child with suspected T1 they should really just do a finger prick BG test and if that is anywhere above normal then refer them immediately to hospital for more thorough testing.

Edit: just seen that you posted the good news while I was writing this - glad she's ok and nice to know that the doctors were thorough!


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## Northerner (Mar 8, 2015)

Glad to hear she got the all-clear - better safe than sorry!  

Apparently Type 1 is on the increase in much the same way as Type 2. There are proportionally fewer cases, but nevertheless they are significant, unfortunately  It's thought that environmental problems may be impacting people on an epigenetic level, so those with a susceptibility are being exposed to the conditions to trigger the autoimmune response - all the more reason to put money into research and find that cure!


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## NI-Bookworm (Mar 8, 2015)

Sally71 that experience sounds so scary.  So frustrating that diagnosis took so long.  It is just not worth even thinking about how serious it could have been.

As you say it is great that they tested, but concerned too that even GP knowledge with correct testing is not good.  

The whole confusion between type 1 and type 2 is concerning.  Even in my sons classroom they were told about diabetes being the result of overeating and is preventable.  I asked him why he hadn't challenged that but he says he is fed up of correcting everyone.  Sad.


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