If your child is Tired, Thirsty, Thinner than usual and keeps needing the Toilet - they may have Type 1 diabetes

[JellyBabiesSaveLives]

Woohoo, when did this topic appear?

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that can strike anyone at any age at any time. It can land you in intensive care in a matter of days. The symptoms are being exhausted, so thirsty you could drink a lake and come back for more, getting thin, and weeing constantly.

If you're worried, get to a GP, fast, and insist they do a blood sugar test there and then.

(That was my public service announcement for the day, in honour of the new Diabetes topic that I've just spotted).

Great public service announcement! Just like to add to watch out for a tummy ache as well!

Don't be afraid to insist on a blood sugar test. At our GPs they only did a urine test so we ended up going to OOH surgery at the hospital for a blimmin' prick test!

Yes please if you suspect type 1 diabetes INSIST on a finger prick bg test. We had the ridiculous scenario with dd2 where she was unwell and at ooh a urine test showed +++glucose but they sent her to a+e who did THREE more urine tests and declared them'contaminated' by something probably "biscuity fingers" (wtf?!) and diagnosed a uti and sent us home.

A week later dd was very very ill indeed, went to gp, still glucose in urine and still no bg t est as apparently "if she had type 1 she wouldn't be conscious" but that afternoon we went back and insisted and bg was very high.

Even if you or dc have just one or two of the 4 t symptoms still get checked as dd didn't have them all, she was weeing a lot more but wasn't drinking excessively, was not tired but was extremely agitated all the time and just cried a lot, had lost some weight but it wasn't a noticeable huge amount so whilst its good there's awareness of the four symptoms remember you don't have to have all of them to have diabetes.

Yes to the tummy ache too, dd had that before diagnosis and painful feet (no idea why)

My dd had the thurst and the peeing and the doc did both a urine and a blood sugar test on our first visit. Then it was straight into hospital to get it sorted out.

I would also tell people to insist on both tests being done.

So my DD has a lot of symptoms. Losing weight but eating plenty, drinking loads (although she has always done that), sweet breath, feeling nauseous and was even sick yesterday, blurry eyes.

She has had a urine test as we thought she had a water infection but it came back clear. A relative also did a finger prick test which came up fine. I'm still concerned though. She has a blood test in a couple of weeks so hopefully that will give us some answers but I just can't shake this niggling feeling that it's diabetes. It's very prevalent throughout our family (type 1).

And remember if your child has diabetes they can get a pump at diagnosis if under five - pumps are amazing in littlies especially. Many district general hospitals won't offer it as the consultants don't specialize exclusively in diabetes and don't want to invest in the technology- you have every right to ask to go to a pump centre - children with diabetes website is amazing for help at diagnosis!

Definitely don't let them discharge you with the mixed insulin. I had no life at all as a child til they put me on basal bolus (which was like being born again :) )!