Teens with Type 1

teens can be reached:

http://ydmv.blogspot.com/2008/01/dr-freud-endocrinologist-and-teen.html

Hello badshoe:

Looked at the link but could NOT find any of the necessary “details” specific to Christi, and others difficulties with their kids. Example was there a “specific link” which gave the “Dr. Freud” Lecture that I just somehow missed???

Unclear but hoping…
Stuart

Hello Jan:

Sure… I have a thought or two

However first I’m going to have to DISARM YOU and take away your “bad mommy stick” that you keep beating yourself with!!!

Lets also make another thing PAINFULLY painfully clear.

He will NOT die from not testing. It is preferrable, it is far, far smarter, but HE WILL NOT DIE WITHOUT THEM. You forget there are three, four generations of diabetics on this list. We peed on things for the first 20 years of our lives and that was TESTING

DIabetes has four sides. Insulin, diet, exercise and the MIND. You can do it with three of the four. If your son is religious about when and what he eats, and is not sucking down soda (sic like beer at a college party), not sucking down wing dings, twinkies, etc as if they were cucumber slices. If he eating is good, his quantities are sharp & correct. He’s ahead of 99.9% of us already.

Try eyeballing a 4oz steak correctly ; )

Does your son have a healthy exercise schedule, a habit of exercise (ie without sitting on his rear end and playing video/computer for 6 hours everyday after school). Does he have physical activities that keep him active?

Insulin is a tricky thing. You can do it tightly, or loosely. You can micromanage how much you use, test 15 times a day and correct (sic overcorrect) every reading he receives. Alll kinds of approaches to take. This approach of test THEN shoot has only been in existance for what maybe, maybe 20 years???

The proceedure used to be shoot in the morning and eat at specific times per day in order to cover all the insulin peaks & activity peaks. This test shoot routine is fairly new. And it encounters a whoooooooooole slew of people who get literally broken by doing so… eg mental ping-pong, spiritual-emotional exhaustion, denial, etc., etc.

The object is not perfect, the object is day to day, doing our best. You cannot ask more of any of us. Myself… personally I violently distrust those who play the sugar police games, or who IME are paranoid about their kids control (or their own). 250, 195, 312, 69, they are numbers, only numbers. You try and figure out what caused them… and let it go. If you find a habit a pattern of them you’re ahead of the game.

Go ballistic about any of it, and you’ve opened the proverbial door to ~hell~.

First things first… I want to talk YOU off the ledge, keep you on sound footing, then we tackle your son’s headspace.

Stuart

Hello Lynn:

Straight faced ask her a goofy question instead…

“…Hey hon what’s the price of tea in China…”

When she gives you glaring/bug eyes, tell her "…its impossible, and you know it, so instead of asking the same dopey question you wanted to ask her a silly one (by which you meant the exact the same thing… what’s you number…)

Talking with them is easy, holding their attention is far harder… (I vote sneaky & stealthy every time when required).

How bout “… hi sweetie, I just tested… CLICK… @#@#&@ that hurt… what the heck do you have you lancet thingy set at 10 million, judist priest… HEY I got a 79 what’d you get…”

Use any of her old strips… (you’ll get an error message but she won’t know that
GET a drop of your own blood… (on the used strip)
SHOW HER, that you will do it too… every single time,

You will keep doing it because you want her to do it, and will continue to do that until she does… or until she says stop…

100% guaranteed you will talk because of it.

Stuart

My reply will be similar to those already submitted, my son is 11, 3 years of Type 1 on a pump. He has pretty good A1C until the last one was 8. He has 300’s and 400’s, but the best thing for us was to not dwell on it, and just move on. He feels bad when it’s high, we feel worried, but there is nothing you can do but adjust the insulin and count carbs more accurately. He wants to own his numbers, so sometimes backing off and letting them handle it more can be better.

Hi. i just found this great forum. I have the same problem with my now 17 year old (who will be 18 before long, diagnosed in 1999). we’ve been battling high a1c’s for years now. i’ve threatened, cajoled, pleaded, you name it. I even took his car away for a month. After i crack down on him he does well for a while and then we begin that slow slide back to 10+ a1c’s. He is seeing a counselor now & that seems to have helped but we’re still in the 8.5 a1c’s. I’m terrified about what is going to happen when this child leaves for college. i am open for suggestions. What has anyone used successfully with an angry teenager? Now i’m trying Lehman’s total transformation program & i’ve found some things in there that i think will be helpful but probably not helpful enough. Thank you all for your suggestins.

I realize this post is old, but I’m starting to have the same issues with my daughter,she’ll be 13 next week,she is becoming self conscious about testing in front of friends when she is out,the placements of her sites…her numbers have been all over the place Due partly to puberty and partly to her not wanting to have to test, and calculate carbs every time she eats. She is a great kid,always been very responsible,but seems to beginning to rebel a bit, I try to explain to her the consequences of not controlling her levels, of course she she just roll sher eyes. I’m constantly asking how is your bloodsugar did you test did you bolus did you change your site…ect. She gets so angry with me. Any words of wisdom or helpful suggestions?

This is a good piece

http://spectrum.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/reprint/17/1/31

I have a 14 year old boy who has type 1 diabetes. I strugle with the same thing. I find that he is not checking BG’s as often as he should. I am thinking taking him to camp will help. He will have fun and learn a lot. Sometimes I think it is good for him to here things from people other than mom, people that are in the same boat. I also heard that often adults don’t check there BG because they don’t want to see a high so they don’t check at all. This may be part of the reason are children miss BG checks. I am going to work on my reaction to highs. They don’t need to feel bad or blame thereselves for a high they just need to know so they can take action if needed. Teenage years there is a lot of change going on that can cause highs. I am going to try and find ways to encourage BG checks as well. If I come accros some good idea’s I will share. Please share with me if you find a way to encourage BG checks ways they seem to help. Hopefully we can help each other.
I also have a baby who has type 1 diabetes and think the teenage years a baby/toddler years are probly the hardest they grow so much at this time and go through so many changes. I hope I was of some help to you today. If anything I know what your going through and have the same question

I believe you have to trust them by not bothering them with the questions all the time. My kid is 12 with Type 1. It’s very hard to do that. But kids with Type 1 have so much more knowledge and responsibility than other “normal” kids. They do adapt understanding their bodies and know exactly what foods, snacks and insulin units will affect them. When we back off, he seems to step up an manage it better. (you can always look at the meter and pump for average BS’s, to be sure it is mostly OK)

I am not sure that is a good idea to punish for not good numbers sometimes it is totaly out of ones control. I would lean more towards for not checking BG’'s. This may cause her to not want to check even more. I could be wrong just throwing some stuff out there you can catch if you think it is helpful if not just drop it. I have a fourteen year old with type 1 diabetes and a 18 month old. It is a tuff job for us all and knowing how to handle every situation is difficult I struggle with it daily.

I would have to agree with you. I am learning now with having my newly diagnosed 18 month old and all the highs he get and how I feel when he gets them. I now kind of understand how my 14 year old must feel with his highs. As a parent you can put some of the responiblility on the teenage son but with a baby it falls all on you he gets highs and you feel horrible you question yourself what you may have done wrong. You just can’t dwell on that you got to do what you can do and move on. It is impossible I think to always have a perfect number expecially at different points in there lives. And somethings just can’t be explained.

Things got “bad” for us around 11-12. If your kids are educated about what they SHOULD do, it’s my opinion that they’ll get back on track when they’re ready. My daughter is almost 17 and is finally “seeing the light” – she was a camp counselor-in-training last year and will be again this year. I think the opportunity to be a role model for younger kids with type 1 is HUGE! There are still times when she’s just “too busy” and her A1Cs have NOT been good. She is, however, becoming much more conscientious about what she needs to do before heading off for college.
Hormones are another factor - in everything! - but they do throw off those BGs, even if kids are testing, dosing, treating, etc.
The best advice I can offer is to continue to support your teens, don’t “nag” (I learned from experience it makes it worse), gradually give them control (but hold them accountable) and just continue to love them with all your heart!
:slight_smile:

My daughter has been diabetic for almost 2 years. It is a constant battle every day to get her to check more than once or twice. I check it every morning before I go to work and then the rest is up to her. She turned 16 in May. I am a nurse so I know the importance of it. I have even taken her cell phone away, had the texting turned off and many other punishments. The thing that gets me is she knows when we go to the doctor they are going to download her pump and it tells everything. Some days I just want to run away and hide. I know exactly how you feel.

I have been feeling so alone until now. I am the mother of a 16yr old boy whom has had diabetes since 8. Thats not the problem the problem is he refuses to take care of himself. We just went to the Dr. and his a1c was 14+ she told him then that he had one foot in the hospital. I thought that would scare him and I think it did because for about a week after he was doing much better.Now he is back to not testing himself for days and sometimes will only test because he feels low. or will just treat his low without even testing. He will go all day without eating or eat anything and everything without giving himself his shot or if he does remember it will be hours after he has eaten. When asked he lies or he blames me and his father for not reminding him. We put signs all over the house saying remember to test youself B\4 eating and don’t forget your shot.It hurts us to watch what he is doing to his body or worse. We have tried taking things away as a consequence but that didn’t work.Also I have noticed his anger is much worse than ever and is very hard to reason with could that be because of his constant highs and lows We feel so helpless!!!

If you can get her involved in helping someone else a little younger then her it could help. If she goes for it, she will start to get under better control herself. Teaching someone else is a great way to reinforce all the information she already knows but isn’t using.

Have them use an online tracking site (I use SugarStats.com,) so they can see how they are doing and also text each other with encouragement and advice.

I lived through these years and survived, and it was scary and tough. It wasn’t until my son was on his own that he started to manage himself much better. Now he is doing great.

I just joined this group and saw your post. I haven’t had a chance to read through all the posts, but will try later. My daughter is 15(will be 16 in Nov) She was diagnosed at 18 months and we have always had issues with her blood sugars. When she started high school last year, we allowed her to go to a school a little farther away because we knew the principal there. She ended up lying to everyone there, not doing her tests, but telling everyone she had. She didn’t do needles like she was supposed to etc. Her A1C’s have always been bad, but we just got back one recently and it was 14.2!!! That’s the highest it’s been. She wants to get a pump, we even have it in our closet, but she has a deal with the dr that if she gets her bg’s down before her next A1C then he will allow her to get one over the holidays at Christmas. She has seen what happens when things go wrong as we volunteer at JDRF and the manager there has been trying to help me get her to understand what happens when bg’s stay high for any length of time. I truly think it took her ending up in the hospital overnight just after school started to get her to understand. The dr in the ER basically told her that the reason things went this far was because she wasn’t looking after herself. It scared her to have to have 3 litres of IV put through before her heart would stop racing and her bg’s to go down. It also showed the dr’s there that she did go down in the middle of the night like I had said. It was able to show her endo what we meant as well. I’m hoping that by changing a few things and her growing up a little over the summer will change some things.

I can totally see where you are coming from as I can see what the future for her can be and where it will go if she continues not to follow instructions. Hugs Stacy

Hi Christi,
I know exactly how you feel. My daughter is 15, she was diagnosed when she was 14. We have only been doing this for a year. Not long. Its never easy to deal with a teenager let alone a diabetic teenager. They want so desperately to fit in at this age, but they can’t cause they have to check their blood or take shots. Yes it is a lot to deal with. As a parent its a lot to deal with. My DD’s A1c was 14.6 2 mo ago. This month and last mo it was 11.3. no change. We have been very diligent with it. OR at least I have. I text her every day and remind her to check her blood. I have found that if I do not overreact about the # and just tell her what her Number was - no emotion even when it doesn’t register on the meter its so hard, but it is just that its a number. You can change that number and help it come down, but if you add the emotion into it, she will jsut shut down and not want to do anything with it. This year since her Honeymoon was over we have dealt with non compliance. Lying. Not checking, not taking insulin -yes not taking it at all. My SIL is a RN. DD was at her house watching kids. DD told SIL that she did not feel good. They checked and it was so high it didn’t register on teh meter, my SIL almost had a heart attack. To me, I don’t’ react, I just correct. This helps a lot. The hardest thing for me is to understand when she is mean, or awful if its her being a teen, or is it the diabetes. I try so hard not to make it always about the diabetes, cause she is a teen. Emotional, and awful, and mean. Thats a teen, but she is diabetic and sometimes it is her BG. I NEVER pay. I was against the pump as well. However the DR. is putting her on it cause “the pump doesn’t lie” so if she isn’t taking her insulin, or checking, it will show it. Unfortunately there isn’t much more you can do. Just be her mom. I have found that we are acting more as a team with her diabetes these days I have my cell set to an alarm for the times at school that she is supposed to check her blood, and then she does it at home before school - i set it out open in the bathroom - then reminder at dinner - I stay up till 11 to check her blood again. i know there are a lot of me’s in there, but I am her mother, and ultimately right now I am responsible for her. I would rather be proactive right now with her and help her develop good habits then be in college and have to be afraid for her life. (I know a mom like this). I am sorry for writing a book, I hope it helps you some. Its a long hard road ahead.

Wow. I mean wow! I just read what you all have been going through with your teens and it scares me! My son was just diagnosed in November 09 and so far he is doing wonderful. He started out with a 13%A1C but…he now is an 8.9 and that includes almost one whole month that he wasn’t diagnosed yet!!! He complains about things but if anything wants to check more then they say he has to. He doesn’t have a problem with his pen injections but really wants the Omnipod pump. He should have it by April. So far the only “arguements” we have are when he wants to have something that isn’t “free” between meals. He checks BG breakfast, lunch snack dinner and bedtime. He knows what it feels like to be running high and doesn’t like it so he tries to keep thing under control. I am scared for the day that he is out on his own though. He won’t do as well w/out me in the back ground. He even said… Mom…I would probably forget my Lantus if I was living in my own appartment. I need to back off from helping him and see how he does. I have been…bit by bit. So far so good. But he is just in the beginning.

I’ve also read with interest some of these posts. As a 30-year-old Type 1 diabetic who was diagnosed at age 5, those teen years were some of the toughest of my life. You cannot escape the denial that teens will most likely go through at this stage - it’s a part of growing up in the non diabetes world, and so it is in ours. Every child must make the decision on their own to address their diabetes - it must hit them, and it can’t be forced. I was in serious denial as a teenager, hoping for the impossible that if I just ignored it, the diabetes would go away. As Dino said, that is just not ever possible. In that phase, I’d reached A1c levels higher than you normally would even want to think. More than once, it was in the 13s. It progressed higher. At one time, my A1c hit 20. Just before entering that “I’m an adult” phase of 16-18, my pediatric endo told me flat out that if I did not change my behavior, I’d be dead by age 21. Instead of rolling my eyes or just ignoring it as doc talk, I listened and it hit me that time. I felt the seriousness, and this started to put me on the path to actual D-care that I’d stepped away from since my earlier teen years. My parents also threatened with the driving, which did motivate me and kept me in line when I needed it most.

College was very tough, as I was on my own for the first time (though only 30 minutes away from the hometown). I did drink, and fell into another state of effective denial that led to some poorer D-care. It didn’t last long, thankfully. Meeting my the woman who’d later become my wife in those later years of college helped change my priorities and focus, and that made all the difference. Pumping began in 2001, toward the end of my college career. At that point, it helped me bring my A1c down to 6.1.

Now nearing age 31, I have minimal complications - have been told retinopathy has come slightly a couple times, but tighter care helped push it back. Neuropathy is also a great motivator. I’ve had some tingling and pain a few times in the past few years, and have been on neurontin periodically as needed. Currently, my A1c is hovering about 8 and I am working to bring it lower. I regret not taking better care of myself, and what it could ultimately mean for my life. I worry about the notion of having children at some point, who could be more prone to diabetes themselves because of my poor choices and lax care earlier in life. I worry that my future children could be forced to grow up without a dad, because of that. It scares me to death. But I am thankful to have corrected the course when I did.

That’s my message to any Diabetic Teen.