A little concerned

So, my 5 year old son has wet the bed (through his pull-up) two nights in a row now. Since this was one of my younger son’s first symptoms before diagnosis, I begin to worry a little. My five year old would definatley not handle life with diabetes well at all, so I am praying that I am just being overly sensitive to something that is really nothing. My mom gave me the idea of checking his blood glucose once he went to sleep (he freaks out at the mere thought of blood.) So, I checked him and it read 115. I am really not sure what or when he has eaten tonight completely, but I do know that between the hours of 7:30 and 9:30, when I checked him, the only thing he had to eat was a cheese stick. I think I am going to keep an eye on him, since I don’t really know how accurate my testing was due to the lack of information on my part. I then decided I would check my blood glucose since I had the meter out. It has been about 4 hours since I had anything to eat. My sugar was 126. I have heard that fasting should be under 100, but other that that I am not completely sure what a normal blood sugar level is after meals. I am really hoping that I don’t have anything to be concerened about, but with my history, I feel like I am just a ticking time bomb. I guess there is really nothing I can do except be aware of what is going on and hope and pray for it to all be nothing. Also, we are going to get our blood tested at the end of June, so we should know a little more then.

Several hours after meals or less, normal BG is in the low 80’s. Non-diabetics have BG increases, but they return to normal quickly. Children have lower BG than adults & normal BG for a kid could be in the 70’s. Meters can be off by ±20%. If your son is coming down with something, this can raise BG some in normal people. You’re right to keep a close eye. Would be a good idea to have an A1c done since it’s hard to catch possible highs without testing a lot.

Hope your fears are groundless. Worrying about your baby is horrible.

Hoping and praying for good news in June! Are they going to put landon under sedation for that? lol
You might have to take all of the guys with you to hold him down. Poor guy is such a scaredy cat! Love him to pieces though!

The bed wetting might be something that is a one or two off. Children may wet the bed having gone dry for months for many reasons. Stress at starting a new school, a school bully, a slight infection in the bladder or being plain tired!

It may all be that simple.

As for the fasting sugar levels, that is tricky as we are all individuals - and I measure in millimols, coming from the UK, so am totally unable to work on that one. Sugar levels rise after eating and at different rates depending on the person and various other factors including health, stress etc and during the night before dropping around 2 - 3 am in the morning, so measuring at the times may mean something or nothing.

But if you are worried, get him to the doctors for a good chat and check up. You will need to take an early morning (fasting) wee sample to the doctors for him to test. They will test it not just for sugar but infection as well.

Whatever happens, he will adapt. Children are remarkably resilient and one things are explained to them in a way that they can understand they become quite blase about the whole procedure and make excellent diabetes educator because they say it as it is!

For you: Ditto the A1C test. 126 mg/dl (given an accurate read) four hours after eating makes me suspect metabolic syndrome (precursor to T2.) The best time to test is first thing in the morning over a series of days (three to five) – at least ten hours after last food/calories. Three over 110 at that time is metabolic syndrome. Three over 126 at that time is T2 (unless you’re converting to T1, which is more rare of course.)

Sometimes bad spikes happen at odd times (e.g. after a high-carb liquid on a non-exercise day but not after a meal with more fat/protein on a day with a lot of walking) but the A1C will give you a sense of a trend, answering the question: Am I developing metabolic syndrome? Am I in the early stages of T2? How are things trending over time? If you have one every three months, you’ll see whether or not you’re starting to migrate over into insulin resistance, the hallmark of T2, even if you’re not there yet. I hate that my doctor watched my fasting glucose (at my annual physicals) go from 90, to 95, to 100, to 108, to 115 over a period of years and did nothing to help me head it off or slow it down.