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Daughter Sleeping Constantly

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MrsGrjl

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Parent of person with diabetes
My daughter was diagnosed in January 2019, just after her 10th birthday. She will be 13 on New Year’s Eve. Lately I’ve become very concerned about her sleeping. I have difficulty waking her in the mornings and she’s often late for school. Every day, she has a nap after school and has to be woken for her dinner. Sometimes she goes back to sleep after dinner and we have to wake her for supper. At weekends she seems to sleep all day. She is difficult to wake and often seems confused on waking. She has admitted to me that she’s fallen asleep in class on a number of occasions.
In the last few months her control hasn’t been as good as it had previously been. She’d had a growth spurt and started her periods and her glucose levels were very high. At her last clinic in September her hba1c was 74 and her team were very concerned. She’s on Tresiba and Fiasp - we increased her Tresiba dose and adjusted her carb ratios and, while she still has highs, the situation has improved.
I’m really worried by how tired she is all the time. I don’t know if it’s linked to her diabetes or whether she has another health issue, such as thyroid? My husband thinks it’s ‘just her age’ but it doesn’t seem normal to me. Has anyone experienced anything similar?
 
Ok…so she has started her period and had a growth spurt …totally normal for girls of that age and higher bgs it is .
 
What I mean to say as women we always hsve a harder time..,unfortunately we have to play much harder games…
 
Hi @MrsGrjl

That does sound worrying especially in school. From my experience I used to fall asleep sometimes in school lessons & also in lectures when my blood sugar was very high.

Do you know if your daughter is doing all her injections or perhaps reducing the amount of insulin she’s injecting? Apologies for suggesting this but this was something I started to do when I was younger and it resulted in overwhelming fatigue amongst other things. If anyone ever asked me I would fly off the handle and deny it but it’s worth considering if other factors such as thyroid function are ruled out.

Puberty is such a time of turmoil with hormones but that was more of a cycle of fluctuating blood sugars for me.

I hope things settle down for her.
 
When is she going to sleep? Both my kids have gone through a phase of not being able to get to sleep until the early hours of the morning and being difficult to wake as a result. Sleep patterns for teens do naturally shift plus growth spurts are tiring. So yes get her BG down and that will help on that side of things but look at her sleep generally and see if you can work out how many hours she’s getting. If it’s less than 10 hours a night it may just be natural sleep deficit as they need more sleep than many teens get. If that still doesn’t give you answers have a chat with the GP.


I wonder if the team has suggested a pump and if that’s an option for her.
 
Has your daughter got glandular fever by any chance? I ask because I can remember many years ago a letter being sent home from school regarding my younger brother who kept falling asleep in class. School were concerned enough to raise it with parents and blood tests showed he had glandular fever.

Bottom line is we can all have guesses as to what is going on, but only way to find out is book a GP apt., and have some bloods done to see what is going on.
 
Hi @MrsGrjl That doesn’t sound right to me, and I don’t think it’s just ‘being a teen’. You say her control has improved - does she test when she’s feeling sleepy? Does she have a Libre so you can see how her blood sugar is through the night?

I’d definitely speak to her GP. I’d be asking for testing for anaemia, coeliac (if she hasn’t had a recent screen), thyroid and Vit D at least.

The excessive tiredness is a concern but I’d also be worried about her ‘being confused when waking’. Could she be going low in her sleep? Has she seemed confused or similar at other times?
 
The other thing to think about, has she had covid? Even a mild case can lead to long covid and chronic fatigue is a symptom (CFS can happen after lots of viruses not just covid but it is in the news because of the number of people getting it after covid).
 
I think I’d be booking an appointment at the GP just to check it out. Yes my 15 year old seems to sleep at odd times, sometimes finds it difficult to sleep at night and as a result is tired in school, and then sleeps until lunch time sometimes at the weekend to catch up. Not every single day though, it’s rare for her to fall asleep after school and isn’t usually difficult to wake unless she’s either hypo or has had a particularly bad night of virtually no sleep. If your daughter’s blood sugar control is improving and she’s still no better then best to make enquiries as to whether something else might be going on, that sounds like more than just “typical teenager” to me.
 
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