My daughter was dx with diabetes in oct. She is 5 years old and every day we are learning and figuring out new things. What should we do if we check her blood sugar while she is sleeping and her blood sugar is high? Do we correct it in the middle of the night or just let it ride untill the morning?
I suggest talking to your diabetes educator first - tell them and they will prob adjust her long acting insulin. This is what has only recently happened to my son who was dx in Nov 08. The past few weeks was really high overnight. You CAN give her a shot overnight to bring her down but I strongly suggest talking with doctors/educators before doing so.
Good luck
My daughter is also 5, she was dx when she was 2 1/2. I would check with your endocrinologist or diabetes educator. They may need to increase your long acting insulin. We recently got my daughter on an insulin pump. This has helped to better control the middle of the night numbers.
Definitely tell your endo. Lucas is 5, dx at 37 mo. We correct in the middle of the night. When he was on injections we only corrected at night if above 200, now he is on the pump we correct when he is above 150. Your endo should look at her trends and tell you what to do. The nicest thing about going to the pump is he does not wake up for the sugar check or correction! The pump also can be set to match her insulin needs in the middle of the night. Lucas has a huge swing with the dawn effect (sugars rise with the sun) so the pump just gives him more insulin then.
Take Care,
Christine
We also have a daughter 5, dx Jan08. We check her before my husband and i go to bed(11:00-11:30)if shes high we only give her a half correction. She has been on the pump since May 08. We love it. It makes things a lot easier.Feel free to contact me with questions or if you just need to talk.
Jana:)
My son, now almost 8, was diagnosed five years ago. Early on I had a standard that he needed to be about 250 or higher before he was given insulin at night. This is when he was on lente (no longer available) and then NPH. NPH has unusual peaks and I was worried about him going lower later in the night. I really did not like getting up a few hours later to check my son again. Of course, I did so dozens and dozens of times. Now that he is on Levimir (yes, we are still doing shots after five years because it works for us) I will give him novolog if he is above about 180 when I check him somewhere between 10pm and midnight. Levimir really works well for us since it functions much like Lantus and functions as a true background insilun. I think the decision about doing shots or not depends on your diabetes team, types of insulin being taken, willingness to wake up again and retest, etc. It's OK to give insulin at night. But, make sure you don't put your child at increased risk for lows. Sometimes, it is a delicate balancing act. Good luck!
Hi nsanom!
I agree with Tracy on this. You really have to get the answer from someone who knows your child's history very well. Maintaining a target BG all the time is a highwire act. It's scary to not know if you're over correcting while your daughter is sleeping and not know right away. You daughter probably will need a long acting insulin adjustment.
Also, my son has been on to pump for a couple years now, but just recently started using a CGM sensor which continuously reads his glucose level and alarms when it's out of range. This fear that something will unknowingly happen when you and your child are sleeping is something that never goes away and that's a good thing in a way because it keeps you vigilant, but this sensor really gives you peace of mind to some extent. Hopefully you will be able to utilize this technology for your daughter and it will help put your mind at ease.
Best of luck to you and hang in there,
me
My daughter is 13 and we still check her in the night. It seems for us to be a catch 22 - if she wakes up high it makes for a tough day . . .so we do correct in the night but are more conservative than in the day. If I give her a correction in the night I check her 2 hours later to make sure she's not too low. I worry that we've trained her to not feel a low herself and wonder how she will leave home and be independent.
My husband is also a type one diabetic (since 13) and he wakes up if he's high or low . . . . . . . . .so I want this for my daughter but am too scared to not check her in the night. Thoughts?
Thanks, Tracey
My son just turned 6 last week so he still depends on us for most of his care anyway so it is a little different. I once heard a college student at a diabetes forum thank his mother for all her middle of the night checks...even when he was a teenager. He said it meant a lot to him that she made this sacrifice and made dealing with his disease just a little easier to not have to worry about it while sleeping. I resigned myself that I would give that to my son.
However, what you say makes sense. In the end, we want them to be able to recognize their needs themselves while they are sleeping. Maybe they will just know you are not there and take that on? Maybe they will count on CGM's to alarm them? Along that same line, I guess I hope they have a closed loop system between the CGM and pump before Lucas goes off to college. 13 is still young. If she wants you check her at night, I would still err on the side of doing this favor for her. Sometimes it is hard to show direct love to a teenager and this is one opportunity. There will be a lot of adjustments when she goes off on her own and I think she will train herself to know how she is at night. What does your husband think?
Christine