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My teenager is sneakily eating the wrong foods

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Katie Spain

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Parent of person with diabetes
Hello! My 13 year old was diagnosed in May this year with type 1. At our last hospital visit in September, she was 82% in the safety zone and doing well. Now she is 55% in range and I've caught her out eating things she shouldn't be, so now I think she has been fibbing since she's been back at school and I haven't been able to monitor it as much. Any suggestions? I keep nagging and don't want to push her away. She is going through the hormones after all.
 
She can eat anything she wants if she has appropriative insulin to go with it. I would stress the food less and look at ways to help her to keep her sugars in range.
 
Hi Katie,
The easiest option is to explain to your daughter that there is no wrong food, but she has to account for what she eats by injecting the corresponding amount of insulin.
Any age is very difficult to accept diabetes but teenage years are the pits imho.

I would suggest also that you make out a simple list of all the things she is likely to snack on with carb/insulin value or find a suitable app if she has a mobile phone.
Nagging is must be avoided at all costs even though in your eyes it's concern obviously, but in a teenagers eyes it's def nagging and the resentment builds then there's total none compliance :(
 
The early months of having a child with T1D can be really tough. We worry about our children anyway and then there’s this on top. We’re here to listen if you have concerns or just need to vent about how frustrating it is. My daughter’s 9 and was diagnosed in March so we’ve not been dealing with for much longer than you and have had a lot of ups and downs in that period but always happy to share my experience or just to listen.

It’s definitely worth keeping her diabetes team in the loop too as there are often adjustments needed to insulin ratios and things like that which may also play a part as well as if she’s eating things without giving appropriate insulin.
 
... and then the changes in hormones also decide to muck things up as well.
Teenage years are difficult for some anyway, and your daughter has Diabetes to deal with as well.
Glad to hear that you have had a good discussion, and the advice above has been useful.

As others have said, a focus on matching the insulin to whatever she wants to eat is a good plan. This should help to avoid extremes highs and lows, although spikes and hypos are just part of normal T1 life. Does she have good friends who understand when and how to help her?

I hope that things settle for her, and that this can leave you with fewer concerns, although I realise that you will always be worrying, and it must be difficult to let her get on with it.
 
Thank you for the advice. Her friends have been supportive but she's with new friends now so I'll suggest she or I (or together) have a chat with them too.

Things are so much better already at home. A big relief.

Thank you all for your input.
 
I have every sympathy with hormonal teenagers of which I don't recall having been one! - because I became a hormonal middle aged woman flying into red mist rages at well - no provocation whatever and OMG - always at work. Hadn't got the slightest idea why I had these outbursts until my boss's secretary said to me one day after I'd calmed down and apologised to all concerned, Je-en, have you ever thought it could be your hormones? to which I replied no, not really, as I never had such a problem when I was any younger. Then she said she'd be keeping a note in her diary and told me exactly when the previous several months rages had happened. Oooer - the dates corresponded with you know what. So I picked the phone up there and then and made an appointment to see one of the female docs at our surgery. She was right, of course! Sorted with the right pills!

It's a form of paranoia (I think) because the person or even the thing that causes the mood or rage has clearly done it deliberately on purpose, to specifically and exclusively to annoy ONLY ME. (cos to be fair that person or that thing, didn't always annoy me, did they/it?) Hence you, mum - who herself thought she was simply asking in her usual tone how my BG was doing - suddenly became a nagging old harridan, out to get me any way she could and she certainly knows how she can!

See what I mean? LOL

It was simply because the lady at work who asked me the leading question had 2 daughters of her own, both now in their 20s and had relatively recent experience of just that and noting her diary so she could prepare herself and their dad for the moods before they started again!
 
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