Type 1 Diabetes at Age 14

by Nancy
(USA)

My 14-year-old daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes three weeks ago. She was ten years older than her sister was when she was diagnosed with diabetes at age four. Oh what a difference ten years makes. My four-year-old needed help with every bit of diabetes management and was too young to notice low blood sugars coming upon her. And come upon her they did, like a Mack truck. It was a near constant worry any time we were away from the house. And even in the house, like the time she had seizures, and the few times she literally bounced of the walls and ran around like a maniac and I could barely restrain her to keep her from charging outside. Because she has had diabetes for so long she is still overly reliant upon me to remind her to check her blood sugar.

By contrast, my newly diagnosed 14-year-old has checked her own blood sugars and administered her own shots from the very beginning. She can immediately tell if her blood sugar is too low or too high. She even takes it upon herself to monitor her sister's diabetes management and exhorts her to remember to do blood sugar tests on her own without reminders from me. She started whispering her blood sugar numbers to me when she was too high, so her big sister wouldn't hear and rag on her. Therefore I was interested when I read about the Diabetes Prevention Trial, which ran from 1993-2003.

Children with a diabetic family member and who tested positive for islet cell antibodies were given daily doses of either oral or injected insulin to see if that would delay the onset of juvenile diabetes symptoms. It turns out it didn't work. Alas. If there isn't a cure for juvenile diabetes I hope, at least, they find a way to delay the onset. The later the better.