Im worried about my niece

[daedae20]

My niece is an 8 year old non diabetic... atleast i think she is. she complains of hunger after eating a full meal. she drinks constantly and goes to the bathroom alot. and she also is gaining alot of weight.she has always been small. i checked her blood sugar reading about 2 hours after she had drunk half a cup of juice. Her reading was 170. I am a type 1 diabetic of 14 years. but i just need a second opinion.

[JDRF-VOL-SG]

Remember that those of us responding to you are not doctors, so this is just the opinion of someone who is familiar with lots of facts about diabetes... If she is gaining weight, then this means that she is not at this point in ketosis, not burning off her body fat because of lack of insulin. Her sugar at two hours after drinking juice does sound a little high, but the real test is how her body is doing in a 24-hour period. If her mom thinks that her habits are somewhat unusual, her doctor could run an a1c lab test to see if her overall pattern is normal or not. That may be the best test of all.

She may be eating the wrong things, and diet may be contributing not only to the weight gain but also to the fact that she complains of hunger after eating. What I mean is that if she is eating foods high in fat or simple sugars and that don't contain adequate complex carbs, her carbs may be digesting quickly, causing an initial dump of insulin, and maybe causing brief hypoglycemia. The result could be a craving for more food. If she maybe starts eating more complex carbs and small frequent snacks to even out her food intake and her digestion and food absorption, this may help. For example, a breakfast of a yummy donut doesn't sustain a person as long as a bowl of whole grain cereal, but may have more calories and may cause the person to crave another meal quicker than the slower-digested whole grains.

Of course it is possible that she is one of the somewhat new phenomenon of type 2 children -- weight gain can mean poorer insulin absorption. So if her habits don't seem normal to her parents, the best thing to do is to have her doctor runs some tests so see what her fasting glucose is, and what her a1c is. Maybe  a glucose tolerance test is also in order. Doesn't hurt to check,and if something is wrong, it is better to know before the child is sick or in ketosis.