Worried about my daughter

[tomkinsone]

Realizing that this forum is mostly for folks that have Type 1 diabetes, I have a concern about my daughter and I am looking for opinions.  She has an appointment with her doctor on the 4th, but that is too far away and my curiosity is getting the best of me.

BACKGROUND:
My daughter is 16, a petetite girl of 5'1".  She had been "hypoglycemic" for a number of years.  We try to ensure she eats breakfast before school, or else I end up having to pick her up from school because she can hardly hold herself up.  She has a family history of diabetes, on her father's side (unsure what type), though its her grandfather's family (all siblings) that had the disease.  And she has lost a lot of weight over the past couple of months, considering the fact that she eats like there is no tomorrow.  She has gone from 106 to 96 lbs (+/- a pound or so.)  She doesn't get thirsty or urinate often, not what I would call excessively.

PRESENT ISSUE:
On Monday morning she went to school, didn't eat breakfast, took two midol with a sip of Arizona Diet Green Tea and she has a cold.  Upon arriving at school, her boyfriend had to talk her to the office because she could hardly stand up, she was pale, shakey, tingly hands, dizzy, weak, etc.  Husband was home so he went to pick her up.  When he got home he called me.  I asked him to check her BS because she sounded typically "hypo".  Her BS was @ 8am 136.  I was pretty dumbfounded by this and so I asked him to make sure she ate something, so he made her a grilled cheese sandwich.  After she ate this, 2 hours later @10 am, I asked him to check her BS and it was 137.  Later on in the day we checked it round 5pm and it was down to 84 and then again at 7pm 2 hours after dinner it was 96.

Tuesday morning when she woke, fasting was 94.  Since Monday episode, she has been between 74 and 96 over the past 24 hours ( I don

[tomkinsone]

Thanks Michelle.  I will do so and you do the same.  :)

[michelle06]

I was searching the web for the SAME EXACT symptoms as your daughter.  I went to the doctor and he did a complete blood test; my fasting b/s was 91 and at the time of the test, I felt like I was going to pass out.   About five years ago I was diagnosed with PCOS causing insulin resistance, and have been on Meformin before.  My symptoms have gotten worse and I am going to the doctor again, tomorrow.   I feel that I am not getting anywhere, so please

[tomkinsone]

Good morning... I wanted to bring you up to speed on where I am with my daughter...  Doc took blood for full lab work to check everything from her head to her toes.  Diabetes is not an issue at this time, though she would like to keep her eye on it since it is strong in my daughter's background.  What they did find was that she is ".5" below the "norm" for Thyroid.  Not too sure what this number means as there doesn't seem to be much available on the net about the numbers (or not that I could find).  The doc wants to do another blood workup in 1 month and if she gets the same results she is going to send my daughter to an Endocrinologist for further review.  The doc also wants a food diary kept on her.  To see how many calories she is eating.

Thank you all who provided some guidance.

[AJ_The_One]

Your daughter doesn't sound diabetic by her readings, they seem perfectly within range, anything under 140 is good as long as its not too low, maybe she's pre-diabetic, but still, if she was prediabetic her bs should be close to 200. diabetes builds up over the years, even type 1, symptoms usually show up when 80-90% of her beta cells have been destroyed but by the readings your daughter has she should be ok, i have found that when my blood sugar is normal i feel shaky, nervous, my mood changes and i feel hungry and nauseous but that is because my bs is usually over 200. I think someone mentioned checking her thyroid and that might be helpful since that causes shakiness, weakness and looss of weight too.

[tomkinsone]

one additional comment, after school today, she was feeling tired and sluggish and her voice was pretty weak.  Hubby took her BS @ 3pm and it was 131.  Last time she ate was 10:15 am at McDonalds and then a milk and 3 french fries at 11:30 am.

[tomkinsone]

Thanks for your reply. No, she isn't physically active. She is "gun shy" because of what she went through when she was in gymnastics a few years ago, she doesn't want to end up that way again, even though she knows that she needs to eat a certain type of food to retain fuel.

A quick update since that post... Her BS last night was @ 9:30pm 101 and this morning was 114.  She did mention this morning that she ate a PB&J sandwich at 10:30 last night, so I dont' know if this affected it or not.

Thanks again for your opinion.  It helps to hear what other people think.

[granny60]

Hi, I'm not a doctor or anything but husband is type 1 diagnosed over 30 years ago, what your describing sounds like what he went through right before his diagnosis. her levels can go up or down not only from what she eats but from her physical activities as well,you did not say if she was atheltic or not. don't let a lot of bs in the same range fool you it can happen if conditions are right. You may also want to have the doctor check her thyroid as that was what caused my husbands loss in weight, the combination can be hard to diagnose if you don't know to ask they can mimic each other. good luck with her hope all turns out ok.

[JDRF-Team-CDB]

Hi Tomkinsone,
First, you  need to know the difference between type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Type 2, which is not the topic of this forum, is the kind that is linked to overweight, and it's the kind that is getting all the press for reaching near-epidemic proportions. In this case, insulin production is impaired but not stopped, and the disease can typically be controlled with oral medication, weight loss and exercise.

Type 1, which IS the topic of this board, has nothing to do with body weight. It is an autoimmune disease in which the body's own cells attack the pancreas, and its ability to make insulin is shut down forever. A type-1 diabetic is insulin dependent forever, until the day a cure comes.

The classic symptoms of type 1 are excessive thirst, frequent urination and rapid weight loss, often paired with fatigue. When our 14-year-old daughter started exhibiting some of those symptoms, we chalked it up to adolescence. But when her pants started falling down, I knew something was wrong. She lost 20 pounds in about a month.

I am NOT a doctor, so please be aware of that, but those blood-sugar numbers do not seem diabetic-high. The newly diagnosed are often at 350, 500, 800. My daughter had a BS count of 450 on the day she was diagnosed. So you can take some comfort there.

But you need to get her to an endocrinologist to see what's going on. Hopefully it will be something simple. If she is not excessively thirsty and peeing a lot, and her sugar numbers are at the levels you say, this does not sound like diabetes.

Good luck, try not to worry (ha!) and let us know what happens.