Saturday 31 December 2011

Incorrect advice drives us potty!

For those of you that don't know there are two main charities that support diabetes. Diabetes UK, which everyone seems to know about, and the lesser known JDRF. Now, JDRF is my charity of choice, and I know that this is also true of most of the parents of type 1 children that I know. They deal with type 1 diabetes and are committed to finding a cure for our children.
Diabetes UK however, get us parents very cross. Never more so than when they make statements such as (I can't remember the exact quote) if you suffer a nighttime hypo, your body will respond and you will wake up. That was the just of it anyhow.
However, on Wednesday husband had to wake Samuel (he had had a slight lay in) he had a blood glucose of 2.9! He was hypo, he was not waking up by himself.
It doesn't bare thinking about what could have happened. Children and young people are dying due to dead in bed syndrome, which is thought to be caused by low blood sugars. Personally I think it is irresponsible to make such brash statements, dead in bed syndrome cases are rare, but that do happen, and parents should be told. It's not nice but you can't bury your head and pretend that it doesn't happen.
We are JDRF all the way...hope is in a cure.

Monday 26 December 2011

Christmas 2011........we won!!!!

After the horrific numbers that diabetes dealt us in the last few days at school it was safe to say that the thought of dealing with it over Christmas left me with the thought of impending doom.
Samuel had had two Christmas parties at school, where like children do when given the opportunity, they stuff themselves with chocolate and biscuits. This had resulted in an evening of horrific numbers and a three hour wait for them to drop!!

Ask any parent, Christmas can be a nightmare. Too much food, eaten at completely different times, overindulgence of chocolate and all those goodies. Throw in type 1 diabetes and you have a whole lot of trouble on your hands.
Christmas morning started as you would expect in a flurry of present unwrapping and excitement, this obviously resulted in a delay in breakfast. I waited with baited breath to see the starting number, the number that would set us up for the day. There was the worry that the excitement may have made it rise....but no...we were in luck..7.9!!!! As Samuel would say....'back of the net!!'  This was a fantastic start to the day.  Christmas breakfast was no different to any other day so there was nothing to worry about.  I thought it may go slightly wrong around dinner time. Usually Samuel will have lunch at 12pm and dinner at around 5pm. However, I had planned to have dinner at half one, and tea at around half five. This could have proved disastrous I had expected hypos before dinner then  a rebound high, but no...none of that happened...level before dinner...5.7!! Another fantastic number. I decided to let Samuel eat his dinner first and give him his injection before his dessert, which actually seemed to work out fine. His level before his tea was 9.8, granted it was the higher end of good but still under 10 which is what I had hoped.
Samuel had a good day, he ate the same as everyone else, which included chocolate, candy canes, cheesecake, cheese, crackers and probably his body weight in pringles, but he stayed under 10, and no hypos!!! So, I  have a message for diabetes, you may make things more difficult for Samuel and the rest of us, I may have to carb count his food, and inject him four times a day, but you didn't spoil his Christmas did you!!!!!! He still had fun, we all did!!! Ha!!!

Merry Christmas everyone xxx

Thursday 8 December 2011

It's so important to know the signs.....

Due the sad news that another young life has been lost to undiagnosed diabetes I feel that we need reminding what type 1 diabetes actually is and it's symptoms.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition. It is NOT caused by lifestyle habits and CAN NOT be prevented or cured by changes to diet or exercise.

A normal healthy body will keep blood glucose levels between 4 and 7 mmol/L (UK measurement) Insulin is the hormone that moves the glucose from the bloodstream into the cells where it can be used for energy. In type 1 diabetes these levels go outside the normal range. This is because there is either not enough insulin or none at all.
When these levels go too high the body will try and get rid of the excess glucose in the following way.
*The body will firstly try and getbrid of it by pushing it out in the urine, this results in the need to go to the toilet more often.
*Because of this there is an increased thirst.
*As the cells aren't getting the energy that they need tiredness occurs.
*The body still needs energy so it will begin to break down fat stores which results in weight loss.
*If this carries on for any length of time a build up of ketones occurs. These are toxic to the body and can cause the breath to smell of pear drops, stomach pains and ultimately loss of consciousness.

So, a recap... The common signs and symptoms are...

*Increase urination
*Increase thirst
*Tiredness
*Weight loss
*Ketones.


These symptoms occur rapidly, if left untreated death can occur, it really is as simple as that.
Numbers are rising at an alarming rate, with the fasted increase in the under 5s. More children are diagnosed each year with type 1 diabetes than meningitis...FACT..

Please learn the signs and you may just save a life!