can someone please tell me if these symptoms my dauhgter has is of type 1 diabetes

[munchkin1]

My daughter is 20 months old she weighs about 19 pounds. When I was 5 years myself I was diagnosed for growth hormone deficiency and I was under hormone treatment. Due to this my doctor felt that my daughter needed to be referred to a peadiatrician to keep an eye on her from birth just In case I passed it onto her.

Recently my daughter has now lost about 2 pounds of weight in about 4 weeks. Since about 3 weeks now she has refused eat her dinner. Previously to all of this she has been on and off ill with viruses. . Before all this for four weeks the doctors are not much help as they keep saying viruses and bugs We give her a milk bottle in the morning soon as she wakes up. She does not always finish this. She has a couple of sips and gives up. Lunch she will only pick and hardly eat anything either. She used have all of her dinner and used to be good eater but this is no way the case now. Since about two weeks now she is refusing to eat dinner?s full stop. Just small snacks on fruit flakes and nibbles on biscuits.It?s like she has totally lost her appetite for anything.

My partner and I have noticed that she is drinking a lot of fluid. We normally give her diluted Robinsons sugar free drink. She goes through about 8 cups a day. Her nappies have been also very full at times. Most days she would wake up with an over full wet nappies. Some days the nappies are less full

She is not putting on weight at all and we are very worried about this for .her age. Her stomach is sticking out a lot and the rest of the body is very skinny. My daughter is extremely active child and is non stop all day. We just don?t know why she does not get hungry to eat anything to the energy she burns. Some days her poo's are runny and some days they are solid. We are guessing the poos might be runny due to her having a lot fruit. To all this she is full of beans and can?t stop playing and running about

We got so worried we took her to the GP.

The gp tested her glucose level by doing a prick test. He said her sugar level at that instance was at 6.4 % and is ok at that time. He although wanted us to bring her for a blood test in four days time.

I?m really on panic mode now if she has symptoms of type 1 diabetes. The not eating- weight loss and excessive drinking is somewhat a concern. Can these symptoms be related to this? We thought if there is diabetes she would eat more and more to replenish the lost sugars .but this is not the case .She in fact not eating, due to this she is losing weight. Can someone please state if we are over reacting or there is every symptom she has type 1 diabetes.

My daughter went through a phase of hardly eating after a series of bugs at that age......hopefully it is just that. If her blood glucose was okay that day I can't think she will have diabetes. Children get really ill, quite fast with diabetes. Fingers crossed you are worrying unnecessarily (don't we all!)

I would cut down on the drinks a bit tbh esp sugar free drinks as they have aspartamine in and too much can cause runny poos as well as other things. It could be this is supressing her appetite. Try milk or water if you can. Hope she gets better soon. xx

thanks for your kind comments . The Robinsons and runny poos sound possibly correct . the Aspartame must be somewhat causing this as she does drink about 7 cups of diluted sugar free peach robinsons . we are going to stop this and give her baby juice from tommorrow and test it for week . dont know if there is anything which has not got aspartame.

we also thought that if you are diabetic you tend to eat and eat. my daughter is the complete opposite . the woorry is that her thirst and weight loss. you can see why we are panicing, about im getting so wrried for next tuesday for her blood test. this is first baby and i just pray its nothing.

dd would often drink so much juice that she simply wasn't hungry. She still would if she was allowed but we only allow one cup of juice a day now, the rest has to be water or milk. She eats way better now.

If you are giving juice i'd be wary of the sugar free squashes, a carton of apple juice is cheap as hell and has no nasty chemical additives.

If it has to be squash btw, Tesco Hi-Juice is aspartame free.

Children typically become very dramatically ill when they develop Type 1 diabetes - so does not really sound like what you are describing in your DD. Thirst/peeing lots/fatigue is more typical of Type 2 in adults.

If she has been a bit off her food and has been eating less then of course she will lose weigth quite naturally. And she will catch up quickly when her appetite returns .

Get her checked out as you are doing, but reading your posts my alarm bells are not going.

she is very active and laugh and run about . today she was very active and did not even need the afternoon nap.refused . s thanks again for your kind comments everyone. its just nice to get other peoples opinions on this . the initial blood test ( prick test ) the doctor did on the finger came up with normal levels of blood sugar 6.4 % this is one good sign. we are going to take her on tuesday just so that its not the problem. we then can sleep well at night. we are also going to try to get this tesco high juice drink for her now. thanks for this advise . we never new about any of this .

Symptoms of Type 1 diabetes are increased thirst & urination, tiredness & weight loss. Symptoms can be harder to spot I think in a little one.
If the blood glucose was 6.4mmol/l and not a starved sample that sounds ok.
If there is any doubt on another sample ask the doctor to do a urine glucose stick to check for glucose there as well.
My dc was diagnosedlast year with T1 diabetes - he started to drink lots & wee lots & probably had lost some weight. He wasn't particularly eating any more though.
Hope you are reassured next week when you go for your next test.

I have been a bit worried about this too as my ds2 seems to drink a lot. He isn't losing weight though and is anything but bloody fatigued, I will take him to the docs though, otherwise it will play on my mind.

Hope your second blood test goes well, but I'm sure it's better to be diagnosed with diabetes early anyway, without getting to the ill stage.

If you want to avoid aspartame, be careful of Tesco hi-juice, only a few (orange, apple etc) are aspartame free, the summer fruit/grapefruit and so on do actually contain aspartame. If you want to be sure get value pure juices and water down .

I think little ones drink more sometimes when they have the sucky cups because of the desire to suck and the pleasure they get from that. That changes when the type of cup changes.

I hope your child is ok.

thanks for your comments . she has not eaten anything today at all. since we have stopped the Robinsons she is drinking less . but yet no luck. with her wanting eat . but all day today she has not eaten anything. i just dont know what to do. on top of the diabetes scare this is another problem. the complete rejection of any food. she is still active and happy and god knows where she is getting the energy. her stomach has been also poping and she has some fatulance . might be due to hunger. we tried all sorts of food hopeing she would fancy something different . im going to get so annoyed with doctor if he turns around and says she is going through a spell as this is not normal . 2 weeks now and its getting worse and worse and she is losing weight . if the doctor still refuse to come with a conclusion im going to contact the health visitor .

I know little about type 1. but I do have experience of a ds who really went off his food and has always been a fussy eater. we found the more we pushed, the less he ate. it became a power struggle. if you are most concerned about getting her to eat anything, can you leave a couple of small portions of her favourite foods lying about, so she can pick in passing if she chooses to, no pressure? don't even point them out to her, let her discover them herself. our ds1 would eat better in situations where he didn't think we were expecting him to eat.

otoh, might she be coming down with another virus? again, ds1 just stops eating when he's starting to be ill.

I have type 1 diabetes, diagnosed in childhood. I'll tell you what happened when I was diagnosed - I'm hoping it might put your mind at rest. Reading the OP, (although I obviously don't know for sure), it sounds unlikely that your dd has it.

The symptoms were:
Constant and sometimes quite panicked thirst.
Bed-wetting (obv not relevant for your dd).
Extreme fatigue.
Rapid weight-loss.
Complete loss of appetite.
Thrush.

My mother took me to the doctors after about 10 days of these (progressively worsening) symptoms. It was first thing in the morning, and I had refused to eat breakfast - so this was a 'fasting' glucose test. The result was 24.7. I was immediately hospitalised.

I remember the consultant talking to my parents in the hospital, and saying that there is no such thing as 'borderline' type 1 diabetes. It's just a case of you have it or you don't. He said that my glucose reading on admission was actually quite low, given the circumstances. He had looked after a 5 year old the previous week who was admitted with a blood sugar reading of 45.

You don't say what time of day your dd had her test done OP, was it first-thing?

the prick test was done at about 5.30 pm by the gp . she would have drunk some robinsons juice and nibbled on something perhaps an hr earlier .
she has not got fatige but like kids do she will get tired after non stop running about . i would not say she has got panicked thirst but she used to go through zips on a fair bit of juice about abour 10 cups a day. since we stopped the robinsons and started giving diluted pure juice she has drunk less. perhaps about 5 cups a day and less wetting she has no thrush that we know of. at the begining she was just nibbling but now two weeks on its complete loss of apertite and she cant even get down we used to class as one meal for the whole day.

munchkin, what a worrying time for you.

Type 1 diabetes in children comes on very dramatically, as described by lolvelybertha. I really don't think that what you are describing sounds typical of diabetes, but you are of course doing the right thing having it ruled out.

Re appetite: young children behave in the way they feel, by which I mean they don't put a brave face on and (as a rule ) they don't playact to exaggerate. If your DD is not eating it is because she does not have an appetite which is, I'm afraid, quite common after viral illnesses. And if she does not eat, she'll lose weight. Which she is very likely to regain swiftly once her appetite is back.
In the meantime, don't let it become a battle of wills. She is getting fluids and some calories and could survice for many days with nothing, probably weeks (not that that would be desirable).
Some toddlers revert to 'baby mode' when they are ill: would she take more milk? Yoghurt? Ice lollies (frozen smoothies are good)? Mashed banana?

You do sound so worried and I really hope you get an answer as soon as possible that will reassure you.

thanks yes we are worried as we love our daughter very much. thanks for your nice comments and reassurance . just pray that its going to be good. you never not woory of these things . i think thats what being a parent is about . no she would not eat ice lollies , we tried every food imaginable . even the sweetest which we thought we would not give . she used to love yogurts but not now. she would nibble on a chopped piece of apple or a segmant of orange . we gave a small plate of spag ball she would put a small piece in her mouth and then pass the plate over. we give her bread with jam she would lick the jam wheras three weeks ago all of this would have been cleared within minutes.

Hello munchkin1 - I was thinking about how worried you are.

I have a feeling that the trip to the doctors today will reassure you in the respect that you'll know dd has nothing serious. However, this isn't going to stop you being concerned about her not eating.

I searched on here for some past threads that might be of some help to you (just with the word 'eat' in Parenting and Behavior/Development). There were loads! The main thing that they all have in common is the OP is really, really worried.

Anyway - here are some links to threads that, although aren't about your exact problem, might be helpful. I think there is some really good advice given.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/behaviour_development/924908-Eating-Food-Phobia

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/behaviour_development/974199-NO-EATING

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/behaviour_development/955741-Toddler-eating-problems

If you read this before you go, good luck at the docs today.

How worrying and I hope you are getting some reassuring support.

My son was diagnosed with t1 when he was 7, although it had been a very slow onset from 4 1/2- we wee under the specialist who couldn't pin it down,despite him losing a lot of weight. It was clear what it was once it his crisis point and the body couldn't maintain function and fighting it. His symptoms were weight loss, stomach pains, tiredness and very ratty, in the acute phase he was incredibly thirsty, weed loads and started to wet the bed. His breath smelled of pear drops (ketones) - we were admitted straight to the ward at this point.

When I think about it, he had a few periods of unexplained stomach pain which we had attended the gp for. The gp only tested for appendicitis. Had he blood tested my so it would have been picked up sooner.

My son now has brilliant medical support and is doing generally very well.

Hoping all goes well for you.

Re appetite, yes my son was not at all hungry. I remember him sitting at the tableland having to coax him to eat a little more after he had been having tiny meals.

However, yr daughter has also been unwell and may have lost her appetite due to this. Trying to be thorough in case this thread can help other worried parents.

my dd was diagnosed at 15 months with diabetes.
She was had full nappies, drank more, was tired or asleep A LOT. she wasnt active. She had a bit of sickness and diaorhea

I got diagnosed with type 1 as a kid and got very ill very quickly...was VERY thirsty and very lethargic..so if your DD is full of energy i'd be v surprized if it is type 1....also 6 mmol/l is a normal blood sugar reading...mine was over 45 mmol/l at diagnosis :O

received my daugters results today and she has come out negative . We are delighted but its not over yet . She has not got any form of diabetes but doing further test for her not eating and possible damage to stomach. we are back with the hopital peadiatrics in three weeks time .

The hopital consultant said that the stomach bug she caught had damaged the stomach lining thus she not eating . they said the doctor should have identified this and treated this immediatly and referred her to hopital without waiting for 12 weeks. this has caused all her stomach problems to escalate.

she needs futher tests and this will take some time for her to recover fully. Also the exstreme thirst was caused by severe thrush in the mouth and throat which the doctor failed to note again .Our doctor reassured us everything was ok after four visits and and its a passing virus/bug but it was more than that . i have received a lot of advise here and i have learnt more than i could imagine about diabetes in two days . Will keep you all updated . thanks to everyone here .

Oh, I am glad it's not diabetes .

And I hope she recovers quickly from everything else.

I'm glad too. Let's hope it's a quick recovery now with the consultant's help. You will have forgotten all this in a few weeks! xx