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Could this be Diabetes?

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J

JW70

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Parent of person with diabetes
Hello All, got some worrying symptoms with my 12 year old daughter. Lost weight since Christmas, now on 2nd percentile. Low energy mid-morning and early evening, picking up after food but generally not her normal bubbly self. Not drinking or weeing more. Sleeping OK. No smelly breath. Eats OK. Blood tests found HB A1C to be 32 (Ok for Diabetes) but in another test at same time blood sugar recorded 1.7, Doctors called us in and did a finger prick test which as 5.6, so concluded 1.7 was a one-off from the Lab. All other blood tests OK. Seeing a Paediatrician week after next. Does this sound like a form of Diabetes? John.
 
Hi @JW70 - Welcome to the forum. I hope your daughter is feeling okay.
I will let other members (who have more experience of diabetes help) but from those readings HbA1c is in normal range and a way off pre-diabetic and so is the 5.6.
I know very little about Type 1 or any of the other pre-diabetic areas. A Paediatrician would be able to advise and it is good you have an appointment. It could be something, I just don't know what that something could be.
Try not to panic until she has been seen by the experts. Good luck.
 
Hi, the readings apart from the odd 1.7 one all appear fine so diabetes isn't implied from those. Obviously you need to follow-up with the Paediatrician to see if there is some other problem. In the meantime the occasional finger-prick test wouldn't do any harm.
 
the HbA1C says no diabetes.

If you are doing finger prick tests at home, you need to do before food and 2 hours after food.

Good you are seeing a paediatrician. Assume doc also did a full blood count as well as the HbA1C, any abnormalities usually show up in that.
 
Hello All, Thanks for the replies. Full blood count was done as well as Thyroid checks. All OK. Home blood sugar test kit coming via Amazon tomorrow so I'll make a few spot checks. Her cousin was diagnosed with Type 1 at 16 years old and is managing it well now. Just keeps this at the front of my mind. John.
 
JW70 said:
but in another test at same time blood sugar recorded 1.7
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Was that a finger prick test?
I don't know if the HbA1c rangers are age dependent. The ones I know are 30(?) to 41 "normal"; 42 to 47 is called pre Diabetic. 48 and above gets you a diagnoses of diabetic (even if it goes below that again, you're still down as diabetic).
 
Ralph-YK said:
Was that a finger prick test?
I don't know if the HbA1c rangers are age dependent. The ones I know are 30(?) to 41 "normal"; 42 to 47 is called pre Diabetic. 48 and above gets you a diagnoses of diabetic (even if it goes below that again, you're still down as diabetic).
Click to expand...

It was a lab test, blood drawn and then sent away for analysis. The lab rang the Doctor immediately they measured 1.7, the Doctor then rang us and told us to give her a cake and bring her in to the Surgery quickly where they did the finger prick test and recorded 5.6. John
 
JW70 said:
It was a lab test, blood drawn and then sent away for analysis.
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I'm not sure what test it would be then. That's what they do for a HbA1c, except you've got that result: 32. And if that had been 1.7 I'd have expected some really obvious symptoms.
JW70 said:
told us to give her a cake and bring her in to the Surgery quickly
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That's the sort of advice you could get if your blood glucose (BG) is low. A BG of 1.7 would be low.

Keeping track of what tests you've had & results can be difficult. Get the GP to print out the results of everything for you if you can. Gives you chance to check them later.
 
JW70 said:
Does this sound like a form of Diabetes?
Click to expand...

Some things could be, which is (I'm sure) why they did the blood tests, and the HbA1c suggests it's not diabetes. The 1.7mmol/L is rather low, but there's no reason to think they're wrong in assuming it's just some odd result. Such things (rarely) happen in tests.
 
Hopefully the 1.7 was a blip. Good plan to spot test until you see the paediatrician. If you get other very low readings you might want to look at Reactive Hypoglycaemia, but I am not sure if this happens in children? @TheClockworkDodo ??

Certainly with diabetes one would expect high readings, not low.
 
It doesn't sound to me like Reactive Hypoglycaemia if she is feeling better after food - with RH she'd be more likely to feel sleepy immediately after food. Unless when you say she picks up after food that this is just after snacks? - that would be possible with RH, if her blood sugar is getting too low and a snack improves the situation. I think she'd get other symptoms with RH though as she'd be having lots of episodes of very low blood sugar, and also if she had RH I'd expect the test immediately after the cake to be much higher than 5.6. But I'm not a medical expert or anything, I just live with someone who has RH, so it might be something to bear in mind if the medical professionals can't think of anything else.

I think anaemia can cause low blood sugar so that might be something else they will test for, if they haven't already, given the 1.7. It's good that she's seeing a pediatrician: I hope they will be able to work out what the problem is. But with an HbA1c of 32 it isn't diabetes.
 
TheClockworkDodo said:
It doesn't sound to me like Reactive Hypoglycaemia if she is feeling better after food - with RH she'd be more likely to feel sleepy immediately after food. Unless when you say she picks up after food that this is just after snacks? - that would be possible with RH, if her blood sugar is getting too low and a snack improves the situation. I think she'd get other symptoms with RH though as she'd be having lots of episodes of very low blood sugar, and also if she had RH I'd expect the test immediately after the cake to be much higher than 5.6. But I'm not a medical expert or anything, I just live with someone who has RH, so it might be something to bear in mind if the medical professionals can't think of anything else.

I think anaemia can cause low blood sugar so that might be something else they will test for, if they haven't already, given the 1.7. It's good that she's seeing a pediatrician: I hope they will be able to work out what the problem is. But with an HbA1c of 32 it isn't diabetes.
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Thanks for the RH information. I was wondering about that already and if her weight loss has triggered the RH. She came back as clear for Anaemia in the blood tests. As far as I'm aware not sleepy after snacks or food, but getting symptoms out of her can be a bit of a challenge! She's gained height over the past few months, but lost weight which is the worry. She's also had two nasty colds and a throat infection since Christmas. Quietly hoping it just a case of her being a bit rundown and a boosted diet would help. John.
 
Ralph-YK said:
I'm not sure what test it would be then. That's what they do for a HbA1c, except you've got that result: 32. And if that had been 1.7 I'd have expected some really obvious symptoms.

That's the sort of advice you could get if your blood glucose (BG) is low. A BG of 1.7 would be low.

Keeping track of what tests you've had & results can be difficult. Get the GP to print out the results of everything for you if you can. Gives you chance to check them later.
Click to expand...

I got the results except the 1.7 blood sugar level as they consider this void. The HbA1c was 32. As the HbA1C is looking at the last 2-3 months of sugar levels I'm assuming it gives a better picture of overall levels but couldn't highs be cancelled out by lows? John.
 
JW70 said:
couldn't highs be cancelled out by lows?
Click to expand...

Can happen, yes (in the sense that HbA1c is kind of an average in that sense). But if your daughter has diabetes that would usually give a high HbA1c (you wouldn't get enough (or any) lows to balance the highs, since the usual presentation for a child is seriously high blood glucose), so the normal result is evidence against it. But lots of things are possible (even if rare). On the whole I suspect they'll be regarding diabetes as unlikely and will be looking for something else.
 
JW70 said:
The HbA1c was 32. As the HbA1C is looking at the last 2-3 months of sugar levels I'm assuming it gives a better picture of overall levels but couldn't highs be cancelled out by lows?
Click to expand...
Yes. In that it is an average. Though 32 is at the low end of "normal". Difficult to get diabetic like highs, and get a 32. And diabetics, certainly when they're first diagnosed, are likely to have lows which are still high.So it would be difficult for them to pull it down that much.
 
Highs and lows can cancel each other out with RH and with treated diabetes, but if she had untreated diabetes she wouldn't be getting lows at all - diabetics only normally get lows if they are on meds which induce them.

If you want more info. about RH, just in case, there is a good Wikipedia article about it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_hypoglycemia
 
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