Can children out-grow juvenile diabetes?

[silverbell]

My 5 year old son recently had his urine tested and the ketones were high.  They then tested his blood sugar which was 160. He is supposed to go back and have it checked again, only fasting.
What are the chances this is Type-1 diabetes and can children outgrow it?  Some people have said yes and others no.

[JDRF-Team-gg]

Hi Silverbell!  Looks like Mark has some pretty terrific information for you.  I am not a medical professional, but in my personal opinion, I'd like to encourage you to keep up on this situation and learn as much as you can about diabetes.  It is very important that this situation is addressed as soon as possible as the high ketones are not good.  It is a tough situation, but if you educate yourself on what you need to do for your son to keep him in the best of health, things should be OK.  If he is diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, he will not outgrow it.  My daughter was diagnosed at the age of 21 months so I have been through all of the stages of child development with her and can tell you that diabetes can complicate life sometimes.  With a lot of learning, you can deal with whatever diabetes sends your way.  Please visit the website @ www.jdrf.org to speak with some pretty terrific people who can help you through this and give you the support and information that you need if it is indeed type 1 diabetes.  Please let us know how you make out with your son.

[Markie]

I have been T1 for 27 years and my 17 year old daughter, Caroline, has just been diagnosed as T1. I know what a pain it is to be totally dependent on injected insulin. And I have been looking for ways to soften the blow for Caroline. Here is my take on it. And I hope you find the ideas useful.

Good news and bad news here. Bad news first. Type 1 Diabetes is is the result of an autoimmune attack on beta cells in the pancreas. Once beta cells have been destroyed, there is no way of getting them back again. And by the time symptoms manifest and keytones appear in the urine, 80% of beta cells have already been destroyed.

So it is not possible to "grow out" of T1 Diabetes. If your son has T1, and it sounds like he does, the capacity of his pancreas to produce insulin will have altready been permanently reduced by perhaps 80%. But, and this is the good news, it may be possible to prolong the life of remaining beta cells for many years.

Because the remaining beta cells are already working at least 4 times harder than they they did before the autoimune attack, they will be taking a lot of strain. Your challenge now is to relieve that strain as far as possible. It will lengthen the life of remaining beta cells and extend the "honeymoon period".

During the "honeymoon", controlling blood sugars is fairly easy. Remaining insulin production capacity of the pancreas means that not much injected insulin is required. Blood sugars return to the normal range reasonably quickly after eating. And only a small amount of injected insulin is required. Obviously, the longer this lasts the better.

It is now generally recognised that beta cells can be preserved by injecting small amounts of insulin, even if reasonable control can be achieved without it. It means that the remaining beta cells don't have to work so hard. It is also important that blood glucose spikes are avoided because they are apparently toxic to the remaining beta cells and hasten their demise.

Reducing carbohydrate in the diet is perhaps the easiest way to relieve the strain on beta cells. Obviously, the beta cells don't have to work as hard to process a reduced and more evenly spread-out glucose load.

Caroline is doing lots of tests to learn exactly how different foods affect her blood sugars. She has switched to a low-carb diet - 60 grams of carbohydrate a day. And she is injecting small amounts of Novorapid before meals to avoid blood glucose spikes.

After two weeks of working at it, her control is pretty good. And, because she is in the honeymoon stage, achieving good control is not difficult. Her plan is to keep it that way as long as possible.

If your son has T1, you have a limited window of opportunity. You are able to retain a degree of endogenous insulin production for the foreseeable future. But it will be hard work.

Best of luck,

Mark

[tc3]

Markie,
You've outlined things very well, however, with one very important mistake:  there is no known way to stop the autoimmune response to the remaining beta cells during or after the "honeymoon period".  In other words, eventually, probably on the order of weeks, all of the remaining beta cells will be destroyed.  At that point, the type 1 diabetic will rely entirely upon manually administered insulin.

As I understand things, type 2 is another story:  the mechanism is different, and so anything done to help (drugs, diet, supplemental insulin) will give relief to the remaining cells to continue to live and keep producing insulin.

If something could be done to change or stop the body's specific autoimmune response in Type 1 diabetics, there's a Nobel Prize waiting.

Good luck to all,
Tony

[alliekat08]

My Name Is Allison and I am 16 Years Old And I Have Had T1 For 7 years And As I Have Gone Through The Years It Has Made My Life Complicated In Many Ways Because My Lack of Caring In The Begining. I made It Hard For Myself To Control My Blood Sugar And If There Is Anything That i Can Tell Newly Diginosed Kids And Teens Is To Take Care Of Yourself No Matter How Hard It Can Get Because You Can lose Youe Eyesight, Your Arms, Legs , Also many Sores also may appear so please take responsibility cause it's IMPORTANT!!! Looking Back I Sure Wish I Would have !!! It Can be Very easy Or It Can Be Very Hard To Live With so Take Care Of Youe Illness well, And Make Your Choice wisely !!!

[Helen17]

Hi Silverbell

Get as much information as you can on T1 diabetes ask your sons doctor questions and have him explaine what the medical terms mean having a child with T1 diabetes you are learning all the time my daughter like your son was 5 when she was diagnosed she is 27 now how his diabetes is looked after now will have an effect on how his health is later its not easy when your child is first diagnose as you do have to make some changes to their eating habits but that doesnt mean he can never have some of his favourite foods you will come across many people who will think that he developed diabetes because he was eating to much sugary thing or who think it will go away like measles when in fact what you ate doesnt have anything to do with developing diabetes and once you have T1 you have it the rest of your life it wont be easy to understand everything at the begining but you do get a very good understanding of it as time goes on and you do learn how to know by your childs actions if their blood sugars are going too low or too high but it all comes with time and understanding I wish you well in what can sometimes be a stressfull time for everybody

[louise65]

just wanted to add that you can get ketones from things other than type 1 diabetes, eg, if not eating well, also some meds can do it, so cross fingers it may be something else, good luck