Hello, I have a 9 yr old who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2003 she is the greatest. I had my twins in 2006 and I was wondering if they were at risk of becoming diabetic as well. I hate that my 9 yr old daughter has to go through this and I would be devastated if the twins had to go through the same thing. I was wondering what were the odds of them becoming diabetic and if anyone out there has more then one child who is diabetic?
it's probably as likely as you or anyone else in your family will get diabetes. my endo told me to get diabetes you need a defective gene in your family. but i dont have anybody else as far as the family tree extends with type 1 diabetes so i really don't know about it.
I obviously have whatever genes my be involved w/ T1 b/c I have it. (: I was told that my son has a 3-5% chance of getting T1, so not super high. Hopefully, it would be similar for your other kids if you carry the genes? I have heard of families w/ 2 T1 kids, but it seems rare (from my unscientific survey of people on Juvenation, lol). I also heard that Dads w/ T1 have a slightly higher chance of passing it on to their kids, but still under 10%. So, overall it seems unlikely for your twins.
I wouldn't worry too much about it, and just explore it if they have concerning symptoms. You already know what to look for! Neither of my sisters have T1, but when one was very thirsty for a while, my Mom got her tested just in case.
My doctor told me that they really don't know why it is that certain people have T1 and some don't. He said that if I have children, they have the same risk as everybody else in the world. He told me that it isn't hereditary, so they aren't quite sure why anyone gets it yet. =)