A little reported risk to children who have had covid…

[JemimaPyjamas]

There are links to Covid causing Type 1 diabetes.

I’m not being controversial, and only came across it myself as I am also a Type 1 diabetic. I don’t see this cropping up in any news features but it does concern me. It also makes me wonder if other things affecting children will emerge.

Personally, I would be concerned about my son having a higher risk of developing diabetes then he may have already. It is currently very low, but I want to keep it as low as possible! Therefore I would probably welcome him having a vaccination. He is 9.

I get your worry. But it's a potential link. They only based the study in one area. For all we know those kids could've had diabetes but unaware.

I mean, no one knows. Of course it's worrying.

DS has had Covid and I'd rather he get Covid again than have the vaccine.

Yes, there is so much we don't understand/know about covid

All autoimmune diseases have several genetic factors that predispose you to it and a wide variety of environmental factors that can trigger it. It doesn't surprise me that Covid could trigger the development of Type 1 diabetes but this is nothing particularly new, any virus that has been around for millenia could do the same.

Any virus can trigger type 1 diabetes. It happened to DH in his 20s, long before covid! It's rare but it happens.

A friend who works in paediatrics mentioned this to me earlier this year, that they are seeing more children with type 1

What do you mean little reported? It’s been mentioned on here loads. I’m also not surprised about a virus triggering type 1 diabetes, it has happened in my own family with a virus a couple of decades ago

I have a family member who developed type 1 as a toddler immediately after a bout of measles. This was decades ago and before the MMR.

The virus seems to have been triggering type 1 in children who would get it at some point anyway. Unfortunately they have developed it earlier so will have it for more of their lives. DS2 has had it a couple of years, and it seems his diabetes hospital team are very busy with all the new diagnoses.

@SMBH by 'little reported' I was referring to articles in the news which generally all seem to say that there is a tiny risk to healthy children and that the virus doesn't affect kids much.

I think that the increase is significant in terms of kids with type 1, but as that number isn't normally enormous in the first place, I suppose it doesn't seem that urgent or important. I took notice as I have type 1 but I think if I didn't, it would have passed me by.

@GingerAndTheBiscuits that's interesting. While I know that any virus can cause it, it does seem to be increasing despite other viruses not currently vanishing while covid is on the loose!

It's not just diabetes that can be caused by virus. People are afraid of rare chance of myocarditis caused by vaccine, but actual chance of getting myocarditis is higher with covid than vaccine as far as I know.

Myocarditis is also caused by other viral infections - again, this isn’t anything new.

Where you have more people infected then you will get more complications, and that’s not to minimise those complications, especially when you think of the impact on health services of larger numbers of people coming down with something within a shorter timeframe , but to me this isn’t new or especially scary about covid - it’s always been a risk I’m aware of

Would be interesting to know whether JCVI took increased risk of diabetes into account when deciding not to recommend vaccination for healthy 12-15 year-olds, or whether they took the view that no link has been proven to date and that increased diabetes risk should therefore not be a factor in their deliberations.

As PPs havd said, any viral infection can trigger an autoimmune disease like T1 diabetes, not just covid.

Also T1 diabetes isn't just diagnosed in children it can be diagnosed at any age hence it being renamed Type 1 diabetes rather than juvenile onset diabetes as it used to be called.