My 5 year old son Brennan was just diagnosed last Tuesday. He is having a lot of problems adjusting to blood sugar checks. When it's time to check his blood sugar he will scream out "I don't want to check blood sugar." then he will sit on his hands and other times when he knows it's time to get tested he will go and hide. My 8 year old son Griffin was diagnosed in 2010 and we didn't have this problem with him. He adjusted well and had no problems with blood sugar checks. I just don't know what to do to make this better. Every time it's time for a blood sugar check or a shot he throws a fit. Any suggestions of what I could do to help him through this???
I don’t know where you are located, but the children’s hospital we deal with has a team in place to help children through all these issues. Is there a psychologist who works with your son’s endo? It may be a good idea to let an expert work it out with Brennan.
My 3 year old son was diagnosed July 9th of this year and what I found what worked for him was letting him feel in control. I let him pick out what finger is used to test his blood and that has helped.
This is exactly what I was going to suggest. Some amount of control, even at 5 is important. The other thing I would do is to teach him the mechanics of testing himself. My son was dx at 20 months, so he had been at it a while already, but he has been handling his own testing since the summer before Kindergarten. Besides making it easier for his school routine, it put him in control of one large part of his care.
We live in Fishers, Indiana. Yes there is a psychologist that works with the endo I made an appointment for Friday. We will see how it goes :)
I ask him if he wants to choose the finger and help test but he doesn't seem interested. His 8 year old brother who also has type 1 is trying to help as well when he tests his sugar he lets Brennan watch and then he tells him it's not so bad now it's your turn to test.
I hope it will all work out for you and Brennan. As you know this is a very long learning curve that you have now started. Even after 6 1/2 years of diabetes, we are still learning, tweaking dosages (constantly in puberty!) and experiencing difficult moments. Never hesitate to seek help when you feel you need it. I hope your precious baby will learn to cope with his condition very soon. Btw, I also have 2 kids with T1D. All the best from Montreal.
We had not quite the same problem, we had a problem rotating fingers. She (age 4-6) always wanted to use the same one because eventually it calluses and does not hurt. So we made a drawing of her two hands, and each time she used a finger we drew a line on the chart and praised her. When one finger had 5 lines, she could not use it again. When all the fingers had 5 lines, she got a BIG present, like a $100 -$150 item she really wanted. It worked. Then we erase the chart and start over. We only had to use it a few times before it wasn’t needed. Fifty pricks might be too long for a younger child, but 10 might work with a smaller reward.
Thanks for the idea. That sounds like something that will work for us.
I'm sorry you are having his problem Jennifer. My son Cooper was 4 when he was diagnosed and we had the same problem. So I told him at the end of each week if he is good and cooperates he can go to the toy story and pick something out. I think this also attributes to age and being newly diagnosed because after awhile Cooper adapted an he realized that this isn't going away. So give it a month or two and I'm sure Brennan will be a different person. Best Wishes!!!
Poor little guy. Finger pricks hurt quite a bit, more than shots. I've stuck myself by accident both with lancet and needle and lancet does hurt. So I feel this is normal. Freestyle Lite and many other meters allow you to test on the forearm. Yes, I know endos want them to use their fingers. But you can probably get away with doing many of them on the forearm. Within a few months, they will develop callouses on their fingertips and either don't feel the pricks with the same degree of sensitivity or just become used to it. These kids are so brave, they become tough and strong. It takes time. The amount of fingersticks and shots children have to endure are overwhelming. I would try to get a pump to cut down on the number of shots he needs to take and use EMLA cream before each site change to numb the area. A cgms like Dexcom would not eliminate but it would drastically cut down the number of fingersticks. Dex is pretty darn accurate these days.