17 year old son, GP or A&E?

[Imamumgetmeoutofhere]

My son is 17, almost 18. For the last 3 days he’s been peeing a lot more than normal and drinking a lot more than normal. This morning I found him asleep on the sofa and he said he had been too tired to go up the stairs to bed, but feels ok in himself today, just wiped out.

I said take him to A&E as these sound like possible diabetes symptoms, husband think it sounds like a UTI and has done an e-consult and urine sample for him at our surgery.

Am I over panicking? Or should I be trusting my judgement and taking him to A&E?

Thanks in advance

Hope he’s okay, I’d be worried re DKA with that history which is very different to diabetes bloods being a bit iffy or a UTI so A&E is the way

Based on what medical guidance?

What ? Google diabetes type 1.
I do not profess to be a Doctor by the way.

They’re also symptoms of extreme heat.

Not a doctor you say? That didn’t need clarifying.

The onset of T1 diabetes can be and often is a medical emergency.

Its a known sympton of the onset of Diabetes an unquenchable thirst
It can lead to DKA which is life threatening.

Agreed my son was disgnosed in DKA he was in critical care within an hour if anyone suspects DKA they need urgent medical attention.

As others have said it most definitely is an emergency.
Without insulin you aren’t going hyper you’re in dka and death follows very quickly.

Because the onset of type 1 is an emergency that’ll almost certainly need a hospital stay to get his blood sugar levels stabilised and him up to speed on carb counting and all the amazing tech that goes with T1.
It’s not a case of seeing how you feel tomorrow, and hope it might wear off. Google T1 dead in bed…thats what can happen super fast. My friend lost her 19yr old boy that way.

Very worrying reading some of these comments. I think because we’ve all heard of diabetes it seems quite an everyday, not too serious health problem. Around 10 children/young people die every year in the UK from type 1 diabetes, many of these due to not being diagnosed/treated in time. Many people are not diagnosed until they are already in DKA, GP’s do not always act quick enough so if anyone has the symptoms posted (the four T’s; toilet, thirsty, tired, thinner, or even a couple of these symptoms) please seek help quickly rather than waiting several days for an appointment.

years ago, I had some concerns about toddler DS in a similar situation and the GP saw me IMMEDIATELY and did a quick glucose test with urine on the spot. I think if your Gp is unable to do this - were they just going to send the urine off to the lab or test in house? - then yes, A&E is the right option.

I hope your DS is okay. T1 diabetes can come on ridiculously fast and this age group it' spretty common I think.

The quickest way to determine the diabetes issue is to buy a £10 glucose monitor from your local chemist which will tell you his blood sugar.

Has he lost weight?

Urine infections in men under 50 are not that common and often caused by STIs which would be unusual in a 17 year old.

Why on earth are you persisting @takingitdown? There is no extreme heat today. If he was hungover presumably the OP would have said.

You seem to be fabricating reasons to persuade OP not to take her son to A&E, even after multiple (much more qualified) people have explained that his symptoms could be life threatening.

This is damgerous. If you are not a troll I’d apologise and be much more careful in future.

We get enough of these threads that I often wonder why people don't seem to keep urine dipsticks in the medicine cabinet. They're cheap and not exactly rocket science to use. Maybe the OP's son needs seeing urgently in A&E, maybe he needs antibiotics for a UTI, or maybe he's just been drinking more fluids and feeling tired in the hot weather. A quick urine dip would mean he could triage himself.

Definitely a medical emergency. If you’re type 1 your body isn’t producing any insulin. That’s not something you recover from or that you can wait and see if it gets better. My husband was hospitalised as a teen because of a late diagnosis. His symptoms were losing weight, thirsty and needing to wee so there wasn’t any confusion or dramatic collapse or anything that might have suggested medical emergency as we may think of it but it most certainly was. If there’s any hint it might be T1D it needs immediate diagnosis and starting on insulin. I hope it’s not of course but all these posters doubling down that it’s not an emergency are ignorant and just look really stupid for persisting with saying it’s not.

I hope MN ban @takingitdown from commenting on any further medical threads because their comments are downright dangerous… “Better to keep quiet and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt!”

What a lot of people don’t seem to grasp is the emergency nature of a T1D diagnosis at any age.
Hopefully OP will return and tell us her son is fine and it’s just too much lemonade and a late night, but if he’s not, and it is diabetes, then time is critical. There is no time to wait and see the GP tomorrow, there is no time to see how it goes over the next few days.
People can and do die from undiagnosed T1D and I think whatever the outcome this lad should be grateful his mum is smart enough to know the signs and on the ball enough to know that it could be a medical emergency.

Even if OP comes back to say he’s fine it doesn’t invalidate the advice on this thread. Learn the signs but most importantly understand the importance of swift action.

You’ve probably already been seen, but tell the when you arrive/triage that you’re concerned about diabetes and they’ll finger prick his blood for glucose there and then

And what are your medical qualifications?

It very much could be a medical emergency.

Don’t comment if you have no medical knowledge (and you clearly don’t know that these symptoms could indicate something very serious)

I would say it is very dependant on your gp practice. They aren't all created equal. We now have an online service which has been a game changer. We'd be able to access an appt within a couple of hours for this . So I'd use that route. For others, who would have a two week wait for a GP appt, id say A and E.

Honestly why are you commenting with no medical knowledge? Stay out of this discussion as your comments could stop someone getting the medical attention they need.

Why not just comment on posts about other subjects that you might actually know something about, whatever that may be it won’t be medical ones.

Hope he’s OK, OP. You did the right thing. If it isn’t diabetes, you still did the right thing getting him checked out. The Emergency Department often ends up ruling something out and that’s ok. To hear some posters on Mumsnet you’d need to be a doctor and diagnose yourself definitively before turning up at the hospital as a possible medical emergency. I’d be dead now if I hadn’t listened to my gut telling me something was very seriously amiss, despite the symptoms having seemed to resolve somewhat during the night.

It absolutely is! This is a classic presentation of Type 1 diabetes.

Also stupid posts on here this is exactly why we have Lyla’s Law in place.