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Another newly diagnosed son

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C

Celery

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Parent of person with diabetes
I've done an initial introduction in the newbies thread but I shall do a short(ish) recap here too

I have three children the middle of whom is a 13 year old boy who has this weekend been diagnosed with T1. Fortunately for him he is currently spending the holidays with his dad (my ex husband) who was diagnosed with T1 at a similar age. We separated about 8 years ago now so although I can recognise hypos and hypers and know how to deal with both the whole carb counting and working out insulin dosage is completely new to me because my ex, as a grown adult, never needed any help with that.

We have the added complication of him currently being in West Yorkshire and us living in West Wales so we are going to have to cope with a hand over between different NHS systems and boards which may prove to be more complex than it needs to be.

The diabetes specialist from Yorkshire will be phoning me tomorrow so we can try and get the simplest transfer we can, and I will talk about trying to get me a fast track everything I need to know learning session before my boy comes back home. He's doing fabulously well coping with his dad's support and experience of the condition at the minute and I may be very thankful that he will be spending his first week post diagnosis with such support and experience on hand 24/7 and that his dad recognised his symptoms and got him checked out far quicker than most.

so that's our situation, but of a strange one in some respects, but I dare bet that I am as nervous and anxious as many other parents of newly diagnosed diabetic teens.
 
Hi Celery

Welcome to the forum. I'm very new here too and my son is 15 and dxed 4 weeks ago. We've no T1's in the family so it was a bit of a surprise. It's good his dad can support your ds, my OH is still getting his heed around it so it very much down to me. Our DSN team are in North Yorks and they are fabulous. 🙂
 
Hi Celery and ladybird

I'm new here too - my 5 year old son was dx on Good Friday. We were away at the time, so I completely understand the challenges of transferring from one Health Authority to another. We were lucky in that we were admitted to a fantastic Children's Hospital which has a good diabetes team. I think the DSN here was a bit surprised that we were carb counting so soon as things are done differently here.

Is your son home now Celery? Hope the transition was as smooth as it could be.

How are you getting on ladybird? We've no family history either so it was a big surprise.
 
Hi Realgonekid

We're doing OK ish I think. We have an appt with DSN tomorrow and ds doesn't want to go. I think a bit of denial is creeping in but if I consider all he's battled health wise since birth this was the ultimate kick in the teeth for him so he's bound to be angry and upset. He's been through a lot. He has a twin who hasn't got T1 so far ( and 5 older siblings) and I think he feels a bit like why me at the moment. We've had a few days of rollercoaster blood sugars too - nothing too high but a few really nasty lows that didn't help his mood and no rhyme nor reason to them either. Just when it seems to go well and I'd breathe a sigh of relief it all goes weird again. I think constant anxiety is going to feature for the rest of my life. DSN say don't test at night but I just can't sleep unless I check on him. He was 1.7 one time I did check and still sound asleep so....

How you doing? We've carb counted from the off too.
 
Update - they are pleased with him. His bloods are within normal range 80% of the time and the 20% is going hypo rather then hyper which we are now correcting with less insulin to carb ratio. His HBA 1 c is 7.9. So everything OK so far. 🙂
 
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ladybird777 said:
Update - they are pleased with him. His bloods are within normal range 80% of the time and the 20% is going hypo rather then hyper which we are now correcting with less insulin to carb ratio. His HBA 1 c is 7.9. So everything OK so far. 🙂
Click to expand...

That's really good ladybird! 🙂 I hope the tweaks with the ratios remove the hypos 🙂
 
Thanks, Northerner. *whispers* Things seem pretty stable at the moment.🙂
 
Spoke too soon. Since then he's been nearly half within normal range. About 5% hyper and the rest of his readings above normal range. The DSN suggested increasing his Lanthus he takes every night from 8 to 9 units but nothing changed after a week of that so we upped his carb to insulin ratio for his tea time meal by I unit to 15 g of carb and that sent him hypo. So we went back to the to 1 unit of insulin to 10 g he was on in the first place. Since then he's slightly high half the time. He supposed to be within 4 - 8 but often is 10- 13 with occasional peaks to 20 he corrects himself.

He is stressed out. Me and his dad are splitting up and his dad is still here. It's been awful :( His dad moves out on the day he next sees the DSN's in 10 days. I'm hoping that's the cause cos I cannot see how to adjust him when it's so random and if we up his carb ratio he goes hypo. There's no one time of day it's higher then any other either. I'm upset about it cos we were doing so well and he's frustrated with it himself. Any ideas? He's 15.
 
Hi, have you spoke to his team again about adjusting? What are his fasting BG's like - if they are high perhaps the Lantus may need another nudge up, you may need to do a through the night test to see if this is the case. You don't say what his original carb ratio was before you increased ?

Stress is a cause for higher BG's (cortisol) but still good to get on top of it as you don't know just how long he will be feeling that way out for. Very sorry to hear of your split btw - not easy for anyone, :( tc
 
Yes they adjusted him from 10g of carb to 1 unit of insulin to 15 grams to 1 unit but it made him hypo so he was adjusted back to the 10- 1 again. His Lanthus has been adjusted up to 9 from 7. His fasting bs is high ( around 13 -15 ) some days, low others. ( 5 -6) I can't get a handle on any pattern at all. :( Tonight before his Lanthus it was 10. He'd been asleep 4 hours so I expect it was even higher earlier. I think I'll phone the dsn tomorrow and see what they say. I can normally sort it out if there a clear pattern but I don't have one.

Thanks, yes it was 16 years of marriage. It's been hard for all of them. x
 
So much for me going on. He's done better by himself and managing himself. His HbA1c was only 7.2. I think I'll leave him too it. Very proud of him. He's only 15 with autism but he certainly know how to control his diabetes himself. The DSN was thrilled.
 
ladybird777 said:
So much for me going on. He's done better by himself and managing himself. His HbA1c was only 7.2. I think I'll leave him too it. Very proud of him. He's only 15 with autism but he certainly know how to control his diabetes himself. The DSN was thrilled.
Click to expand...

Terrific results! Big pat on the back for him! 🙂
 
What a good lad, well done him!!🙂
 
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