Newly diagnosed teen and exams

Status
Not open for further replies.
E

Edinburgh94

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Parent
Pronouns
She/Her
Hi my 16 year old son was very recently diagnosed with T1D and has important exams coming up - he has just advised me that he is struggling to concentrate, retain information from class and recall and apply his learning. Is this related to his diagnosis? Can anyone make any suggestions of techniques or strategies- any help is welcome. Thanks
 
Welcome to the forum.
I can't help specifically but there are a few parents here who will have been in the same situation and hopefully they will be along to give you some words of wisdom.
There should be something in place with the school or college who need to be aware of his diagnosis and have a policy in place.
@Lily123 is of a similar age so has strategies in place for exams etc but has been diagnosed longer but may be able to offer some advice.
Does he have a Libre or similar and what insulins is he using.
 
Thanks for the tag @Leadinglights

Welcome to the forum @Edinburgh94 .

Does your son have a CGM like Dexcom or Libre? If your sons BG is out of range,then it will be harder to retain information. Plus with the stress of a new type 1 diagnosis thrown in,it’ll be more difficult at first.

Has your sons school been informed of the diagnosis and what exam arrangements are going to be needed for your son?
 
If he was very recently diagnosed then his blood sugars will still be high, insulin doses are started conservatively as it would be dangerous to drop his blood sugars back down to normal too quickly. This is bound to affect concentration, not to mention just the shock of the diagnosis and trying to take it all in. Speak to the school, he should have a care plan in place which details what needs to be done during the day to manage his diabetes, what to do in an emergency and so on. The diabetes specialist nurse should be able to help with creating that.

Also, he should be entitled to breaks during exams if necessary, for example if he goes low and has to deal with it and needs time to recover they will stop the clock, let him do whatever necessary and then continue when he feels better. Again the nurse/hospital team should be able to provide a letter to this effect. Also that he needs to have blood testing equipment/CGM reader and hypo treatments in the exam with him.

Other than that all I can suggest is just keep as close an eye on his blood sugars as he can and learn how to react to problems. It’s a steep learning curve at first but does get easier, so hopefully by the time his final GCSEs come round he’ll be in a better position to deal with them.
 
Thanks for your replies, he has a libre sensor and uses novorapid and tresiba.
We have told school about his diagnosis and there are special arrangements in place for exams - it’s just the motivation and lack of concentration that are the problem right now.
As you all say, it is early days, just hoping this becomes easier moving forward.
 
He might be entitled to extra time for the exams @Edinburgh94 I can’t remember if it’s an extra 20% or an extra 25%, but people with medical issues can apply, stating the reason why they need the extra time. This is in addition to any breaks needed to treat high or low sugars. If he does get a low, he should be given adequate time to recover before continuing with the exam.
 
The timing is bad for him as I know how much pressure there is in this year. It’s worth having a realistic conversation about what his expectations are for the future and what he needs to get to the next step in education. It may be worth him dropping a couple of subjects so he has more bandwidth to deal with the rest. Whilst it’s the norm now to do a lot of GCSEs it’s often not actually needed for the next level of study especially if there are mitigating circumstances. He can always redo a year in one way or another which may feel like a disaster to him right now but ultimately taking the pressure off as much as possible will be best in the long run both academically and with his diabetes management. The first few months after diagnosis can be hard as he needs to retain a lot of information while his blood glucose may still be all over the place (especially if he’s in the honeymoon phase and his body still produces some insulin).

But yes extra time and breaks should be factored into the exams he does do and he should have a EHCP to help him with his lessons too.
 
Thebearcametoo said:
The timing is bad for him as I know how much pressure there is in this year. It’s worth having a realistic conversation about what his expectations are for the future and what he needs to get to the next step in education. It may be worth him dropping a couple of subjects so he has more bandwidth to deal with the rest. Whilst it’s the norm now to do a lot of GCSEs it’s often not actually needed for the next level of study especially if there are mitigating circumstances. He can always redo a year in one way or another which may feel like a disaster to him right now but ultimately taking the pressure off as much as possible will be best in the long run both academically and with his diabetes management. The first few months after diagnosis can be hard as he needs to retain a lot of information while his blood glucose may still be all over the place (especially if he’s in the honeymoon phase and his body still produces some insulin).

But yes extra time and breaks should be factored into the exams he does do and he should have a EHCP to help him with his lessons too.
Click to expand...
Thank you for your comment.
Can you confirm what an EHCP is? We are in Scotland- is this something UK wide?
 
Ah it might be different in Scotland. In England you can get an education health care plan which means that accommodations can be put in place to help kids with disabilities or health issues.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top