Son diagnosed with type 1 after falling ill with COVID

[Mum.of.Ethan]

Good evening,
We’ve had quite the week of it. Positive covid test 10 days ago for the whole house. My son got gradually sicker and sicker. After a trip to out of hours on Saturday we were sent to the hospital hdu straight away. Type 1 diagnosed, he’s only 6. Such a shock to us all. As we all had covid we were unable to leave our room, my fiancé was unable to visit etc. A hard time made harder. They think covid may have triggered my son‘s diabetes. Cant praise the doctors and nurses enough. They were amazing. We now have a digital glucose machine that blue tooth’s to an app on our phone. This is fine as we are at home, but I’m thinking ahead to when he returns to school in January. I’d like to be able to track his levels when he’s at school. How do other parents manage this? I’d thought of an old mobile phone or possibly a watch phone that could sinc to his machine and then I would be able to check his levels. Any help for this would be appreciated.
thanks

 

[Lily123]

What make is the digital glucose machine?And welcome to the forum @Mum.of.Ethan!

 

[Mum.of.Ethan]

Hi, it’s a Sure Smart Duo.

 

[Lily123]

I just went and read up on this meter on google. I’m assuming that for the bluetooth feature the meter has to be near enough to your phone?

 

[Sally71]

We have Dexcom sensors, my daughter’s phone bluetooths to the sensor and then sends the data somewhere into the sky where my phone can pick it up from. We need Dexcom G6 app on her phone and Dexcom follow on mine. Works pretty well except when she’s in maths, for some reason her phone can’t get a signal in the maths classroom so then I get a gap in my data! It still works for her though

Dexcom are expensive though and not many people can get them on prescription. I’ve never heard of your particular machine but it might be worth investigating whether a similar system works for that. Yes your son would basically have to have a smartphone with him all the time (check compatibility with whatever app you’d need).

My daughter was also 6 when first diagnosed and we didn’t have anything like that then, just a normal blood checking machine and no sensors. To be honest I don’t know if I’d have liked to know what her blood sugars were doing all day then, I’d probably have worried if it told me she was low, and I wouldn’t want to be ringing the school and then stopping someone from doing what was necessary because they had to answer the phone! So I had to just trust that someone would look after her, there was the odd occasion when they didn’t quite do things how I would have liked but we never had a situation where an ambulance needed to be called so I guess they did well enough! Now my daughter is 15 so it’s less scary because I know she can handle it herself. The support at her secondary school has been amazing too, way better than primary.

You will need to make a care plan though and make sure any staff who teach your son are aware of meal time procedure and what to do if he’s low or high. The diabetes nurses can help you with that if you’re not sure where to start. Schools by law now have to provide a member of staff who is willing to be trained up to do whatever is necessary to help a child with a medical condition (doesn’t have to be the class teacher though, can be support staff)

 

[Mum.of.Ethan]

Yes, it needs to be pretty close. I was hoping that a phone watch would do the same and then if I linked it to the diabetes M app then I could then monitor his levels. Just now the sure smart machine uploads all the info onto the app. I’m possibly being a worried mum wanting to know his lunch readings when he’s at school ‍♀️ Just wondered if anyone else did this and what they used 🙂

 

[Lily123]

Yes, it needs to be pretty close. I was hoping that a phone watch would do the same and then if I linked it to the diabetes M app then I could then monitor his levels. Just now the sure smart machine uploads all the info onto the app. I’m possibly being a worried mum wanting to know his lunch readings when he’s at school ‍♀️ Just wondered if anyone else did this and what they used 🙂

The mter sends the readings to your phone? You mean the meter has bluetooth? Very high tech if so

 

[Mum.of.Ethan]

We have Dexcom sensors, my daughter’s phone bluetooths to the sensor and then sends the data somewhere into the sky where my phone can pick it up from. We need Dexcom G6 app on her phone and Dexcom follow on mine. Works pretty well except when she’s in maths, for some reason her phone can’t get a signal in the maths classroom so then I get a gap in my data! It still works for her though

Dexcom are expensive though and not many people can get them on prescription. I’ve never heard of your particular machine but it might be worth investigating whether a similar system works for that. Yes your son would basically have to have a smartphone with him all the time (check compatibility with whatever app you’d need).

My daughter was also 6 when first diagnosed and we didn’t have anything like that then, just a normal blood checking machine and no sensors. To be honest I don’t know if I’d have liked to know what her blood sugars were doing all day then, I’d probably have worried if it told me she was low, and I wouldn’t want to be ringing the school and then stopping someone from doing what was necessary because they had to answer the phone! So I had to just trust that someone would look after her, there was the odd occasion when they didn’t quite do things how I would have liked but we never had a situation where an ambulance needed to be called so I guess they did well enough! Now my daughter is 15 so it’s less scary because I know she can handle it herself. The support at her secondary school has been amazing too, way better than primary.

You will need to make a care plan though and make sure any staff who teach your son are aware of meal time procedure and what to do if he’s low or high. The diabetes nurses can help you with that if you’re not sure where to start.

Thank you! I guess what with technology now that there is so much possible. My son doesn’t have a phone and I had no intention of getting him one until he was 10, but thought a watch phone would maybe work for this purpose. It is only for his lunch and I know the school will get training and will look after him. I suppose it’s all just so new to us all that I’m trying to plan out his return to school and how we will all manage this. Thank you so much.

 

[Mum.of.Ethan]

The mter sends the readings to your phone? You mean the meter has bluetooth? Very high tech if so

Yes, the meter sends the info to an app on my phone via Bluetooth and then the diabetes team are able to monitor his information too. We’ve only been home since Monday and just found out his diagnosis on Saturday night.

 

[Lily123]

There might be some smart watches able to scan sensors but the worry with that is like @Sally71 said

 

[Lily123]

Yes, the meter sends the info to an app on my phone via Bluetooth and then the diabetes team are able to monitor his information too. We’ve only been home since Monday and just found out his diagnosis on Saturday night.

Sorry didn’t see this before I posted my other comment.Would it be possible for this to carry on by taking the meter to school or would this be out of range to link to your phone?

 

[Sally71]

Before we had sensors I just used to go through the meter memory when my daughter got home and got all the info I needed from that about what had been going on during the day, then I’d log it all in a diary to check whether there were any patterns which would suggest adjustments necessary. I work as a dinner lady in that school so I was lucky in a way, if there was any problem at lunch time someone could just come and find me! Other diabetic children have since gone through the same school and it seems to be the thing now to get the school staff to write everything down in a book - blood sugar level, how many units of insulin given, how many glucose tablets when low etc etc. I don’t see the point of that, you can get it all from the meter memory yourself, except for how much glucose consumed and I don’t see that that matters as long as they have come back up to normal numbers again!

 

[Lily123]

Before we had sensors I just used to go through the meter memory when my daughter got home and got all the info I needed from that about what had been going on during the day, then I’d log it all in a diary to check whether there were any patterns which would suggest adjustments necessary. I work as a dinner lady in that school so I was lucky in a way, if there was any problem at lunch time someone could just come and find me! Other diabetic children have since gone through the same school and it seems to be the thing now to get the school staff to write everything down in a book - blood sugar level, how many units of insulin given, how many glucose tablets when low etc etc. I don’t see the point of that, you can get it all from the meter memory yourself, except for how much glucose consumed and I don’t see that that matters as long as they have come back up to normal numbers again!

I know this may seem negative but with the school writing everything down it may be for there own records or to cover there backs if something goes wrong

 

[Sally71]

I know this may seem negative but with the school writing everything down it may be for there own records or to cover there backs if something goes wrong

Possibly, my daughter’s school do that and we didn’t ask them to, they keep the records though, the kids at primary school take the book home with them. Nobody did it at all when my daughter was at primary school! (Not a problem as far as I’m concerned, and I think my daughter now wishes she didn’t have to go to medical to do her insulin every day, she’s quite capable of just doing it herself with no fuss)

 

[Lily123]

Possibly, my daughter’s school do that and we didn’t ask them to, they keep the records though, the kids at primary school take the book home with them. Nobody did it at all when my daughter was at primary school! (Not a problem as far as I’m concerned, and I think my daughter now wishes she didn’t have to go to medical to do her insulin every day, she’s quite capable of just doing it herself with no fuss)

In primary school I had a book that had the date written in and then all insulin taken and all meal time numbers recorded. The lunch one was filled in at school as the school preferred to do this. I guess for their records and so if it happened to be a different teacher there in a hypo situation they knew what hypo treatment I needed if I couldn’t think straight cause of the hypo

 

[Inka]

Welcome @Mum.of.Ethan and sorry you’ve had to join us. What a stressful time you’ve had, with Covid and Type 1. That must be very difficult.

I can’t offer help on the tech side, but there’s a great book for Type 1s:

Type 1 Diabetes in Children Adolescents and Young People by Ragnar Hanas

Do ask whatever questions you want. Nothing is too trivial or ‘silly’. I’ll tag some other parents for you, if they’re not tied up in Xmas preps @Bronco Billy @Thebearcametoo

 

[Mum.of.Ethan]

Super! Thank you so much for your help 🙂

 

[Thebearcametoo]

Hi and welcome. Your diabetes team will do lots of work with both you as a family and the school so that everyone is confident about how to manage his diabetes. At the moment you have a lot of info to take on board and being worried is normal. I don’t know that meter to know what’s possible but the diabetes team will know what the options are both for your son and for relaying info to you. The school team will make sure he has support at school and he will have a care plan. If you’re willing and able you may be able to go in at lunch time to begin with but with covid on top of everything else that may be difficult right now. Try not to let your brain run away with all the things you might need to do. Just deal with the day to day for now.