Finding out that your child has type 1 diabetes is a nightmare for any parent, especially when your child is as young as three years old!
One mother shares her story.
Her daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes
In a Facebook post, mommy Joanna shared how they found out that their daughter, Sophie, had type 1 diabetes.
She writes:
“Dec 19, 2017: Sophie started getting light colds and coughs so we decided to visit her pedia pulmo for meds to take before our upcoming Baguio trip. He prescribed Augmentin (antibiotic) and Combivent (nebulizer for her asthma).
“Dec 24, 2017: Our first day in Baguio and 4 days into our antibiotic, she started to become feverish and prefers to just laze around and sleep. She slept through our whole trip going up and continued sleeping even after arriving. When she woke up, she’s already at 38.5º fever which was very surprising since we’re already 4 days into our augmentin (immediately gave her paracetamol, cool fever, hydrate, etc).
“Dec 25, 2017: With slight improvement of fever after drinking paracetamol (Tempra) during the day but reached 39º fever at around 8PM. We decided to take her to St Louis Hospital ER in Baguio wherein she was given a different antibiotic – Clarithromycin, but we immediately decided that we need to take her back to Manila asap.
“Dec 26, 2017: We went directly to our hospital ER and just insisted to be admitted despite her having only “seemingly flu like” symptoms. At this point, she’s barely awake. This is not typical of her. Apart from IV, she was also given another antibiotic – her third this time – Cefeuroxime.
“Dec 27, 2017, Morning: Already admitted with IV and antibiotics and nebulize, she’s still not rousing. She responds to pain during blood extractions but goes back to sleep right away. Her breathing has started to become labored, like somebody running a marathon.”
They started to get worried about her deteriorating health
At this point, they were very worried about Sophie’s health. She was struggling to breathe. They also had a hard time waking her up, and she was asleep during blood extractions.
Finally, in the afternoon, one of the nurses insisted on conducting a urinalysis, since they might have missed something during the other tests. After the urinalysis, she said that “the whole floor went crazy.”
The urinalysis revealed that Sophie’s blood sugar level was 600. Comparatively, a normal adult’s blood sugar levels are around 90-100. Sophie had six times the normal amount of blood sugar for adults!
Soon after, Sophie’s eyes started to roll back in her head, and she fell into a coma.
Doctors quickly worked to inject her with insulin, and conducted numerous tests on her every hour. Joanna even said that Sophie’s hands were bruised as a result of retrieving blood samples, that they had to get the samples from her toes.
She has recovered, and they’re now more careful about what she eats
Thankfully, Sophie recovered from her ordeal, and is now out of the hospital.
However, she’s now required to take four insulin shots before every meal, in addition to checking her blood sugar levels constantly.
It’s not an easy thing to do for Joanna, since Sophie’s young and she’s not keen on constantly having to be injected with insulin. Joanna also mentioned that she accidentally shot herself twice with insulin because Sophie was so resistant.
According to Joanna, she did some research about Sophie’s condition, and she thinks that it might have been caused by a seemingly normal viral infection. They believe that Sophie’s pancreas could have been affected when she got Hand Foot Mouth disease in October of last year.
She’s now documenting her daughter as well as her experiences in her blog.
What is type 1 diabetes?
Type 1 diabetes, which was previously known as juvenile diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes, is a condition wherein the pancreas produce little to no insulin.
Insulin is a very important hormone that’s needed for the body’s cells to utilize sugar in the blood as a source of energy.
A number of factors, including viral infections, and genetics, can contribute to type 1 diabetes. For the most part, type 1 diabetes usually develops during childhood or adolescence, but it can also happen during adulthood.
Sadly, type 1 diabetes has no cure. However, there is medication that can help manage blood sugar levels for people with type 1 diabetes.
Here are the important symptoms that parents should know about:
- Sudden increase in thirst
- Frequent urination
- Sudden bed-wetting
- Extreme hunger
- Sudden weight loss
- Irritability
- Fatigue and weakness
- Blurred vision
If you think that your child might have type 1 diabetes, then it’s important to take your child to a doctor so that they can get tested. Early detection of the condition can prevent complications, and can help you better manage the condition.
Source: Facebook
Photo from: Facebook
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