Is this normal?

[kraysmom]

I am the mother of a 16 yr old diabetic.  She has been diagnosed for 4 years now and it has been a nightmare.  She has had so many problems with getting her blood sugar under control.  All the doctors we have seen say she is a "brittle diabetic" and that she should be easier to control after she turns 16 or 17.  Here lately we have been dealing with severe lows.  This come out of no where.  I thought that after being a diabetic for this long you wouldn't see the Honeymoon stage again.  This is what it looks like to me.  I watch everything she does and she isn't taking too much insulin.  It seems that if she has a good week, everything turns around and we back to Highs or Lows.  HELP!

[JDRF-VOL-SG]

What my own doctors never told me and what I had to finally discover as an adult by doing my own reading, is that in the weeks before her menstrual cycle, hormone levels change in a female. And some of the horomones that increase in the week or weeks before her period are insulin-resistant, so many girls and women find that their sugar levels rise at that time. Some find it no big deal, while others find that they absolutely cannot get those sugars down during that time. And after those hormones dissipate, suddenly we can become hypoglycemic for several days. So look for the pattern of rising sugars followed by sudden drops in glucose during the last days or weeks of her cycle. I particularly have trouble with the lows, and they can be severe during this time. So if you know what the pattern is supposed to be, you can sort of be prepared for both highs and lows. Each person is different, and you just will have to figure out what the hormones are going to do specifically to her, and then try to be ready for the expected swings. I find that marking dates on the calendar helps me to  be prepared.

[kraysmom]

This sounds like what is happening.  Maybe we are going to see some changes soon.  When Katelyn was diagnosed, she was 12 about to turn 13 in a few days and she was 91 pounds.  It seems like she has grown up so fast since.  She is 5'8 and weighs 157 and looks like a woman.  She went through puberty very fast; I think too fast for her body to keep up.  Thanks for your insight on this. Good luck with your little girl!

[kraysmom]

Thanks for your reply.  We tried the pump over a year ago and her body rejected it.  She kept getting little staff infections at the sites.  The doctors took her off of it and said that she may can try it later on in life.  She is on a new long acting insulin, Levimere at night and the morning and that has done great for her since we started it but we have incidents where her body rejects insulin and then we are dealing with lows.  It is like her body is storing insulin and releases it all at once.  Doctors don't have an excuse for that though.  

[Nebraska0204]

My mother was 19 when she was diganose with type 1 diabetes.  She is also what the dr's classify as a Brittle Diabetic.  Her life has been up and down over the past 40 years of dealing with this disease.  She was just like your daughter, lows and highs, highs and low.  Never stable.  Then 5 years ago she went on the pump.  That seemed to stabilize her better.  You might want to check it out if she isn't already on it.  

Also remind her daily to be kind to her feet.  Those are one of the first things to start to deteriorate in brittle diabetics.  

Good Luck and if you need anything.  Email me at [email protected]

[JDRF-VOL-RL]

Hello!  I'm not a medical professional, just the parent of a kid with diabetes, just like you.  You are correct in saying that a honeymoon stage does not reappear.  I suspect what you're seeing is your daughter coming off puberty.  Puberty is known to create havoc with blood sugars, and if she is coming out of puberty then the hormones that are caused those fluctuations are going away, so the amount of insulin may need to be reduced because of it.  My daughter is just entering that phase, so we have all this to look forward to yet.