I'm pretty new here, but I was curious to see anyone else's experience on this subject.
My daughter is 9 and had a hypoglycemic seizure back in July. I think it was a big wake up call for us as parents. She had been low during the evening and I had given her a snack to bring up her sugar, however, it obvsiously wasn't enough. I slacked in not having her re-check her sugar after we treated the low.
At 11:45 pm that night we woke up to her convulsing in our bed (she sleeps with us, thank God). So we woke up immediately. I COMPLETELY forgot the Glucagon, so I went to the kitchen and grabbed some icing sugar to squeeze in her mouth. The whole time she's seizing, eyes rolling back in her head...it was completely awful. I called 911 and we just kept trying to get her to talk and swallow the stuff. A few minutes later (maybe less than a minute - it seemed forever), she had stopped seizing, but still wasn't talking at all. The paramedics showed up and by that time I had gotten her to respond to me. I asked her to tell me who I was and she sputtered "Mommy." I had checked her BS right before the paramedics showed up and it was 51, but that was after the sugar and some apple juice. I have no idea how low she really was, but we're guessing in the 30's or even 20's.
We ended up going to the ER that night and got to leave at around 7 am that morning. Her sugars were all over the place during the night and they wouldn't let us go until we had them under control.
Since then, we have adjusted the insulin down, started checking her more during the evening, and make sure she was rebounding correctly.
I hope no one ever has to see this happen to their own child. I felt so helpless. I only hope that God forbid if it happens again, my head is clearer and I can reach for the Glucagon and have it work. I have three of them in the house, but hope I never have to use them.
My son is 8 and was diagnosed when he was 5. We have not experienced a seizure yet and hope we never do. We have been very lucky because his blood sugar has frequently been in the 20's. My mom was a type 1 diabetic and she would get spot seizures (her arm would seize, or hand, or shoulder, etc) when her blood sugar was high (and would be high for a while). She finally had to be put on seizure medication. I hope you never go through that again.
Vicky, I'm so sorry you had to see your daughter like that.....How frightening! I couldn't help but to tear up reading your blog. My son is 10 now,and was diagnosed at 7. It is a great fear of mine to see him like that. I do think I can handle it while it is happening, but hope it never does. It's always easy to think you can do it, until you actually HAVE to do it! I check my son's glucose every night around 10 or 11 and again 3 hours later. EVERY NIGHT OF MY LIFE FOR ALMOST 3 YEARS NOW. I'm afraid NOT to. I feel it's something I have to do to help keep him safe and his A1C down, so he'll be as healthy as possible as a young adult when I have to (God forbid) let him go out on his own! LOL I'll always be a nervous wreck! LOL We just have to do the best we can as parents, we're not perfect. I'm reading this, thinking that I will go right NOW and put a Glucagon in my son, Chase's room. I have sugar tabs and glucose gel, but no glucagon......Thanks, reading this may help me avoid having a crisis with him, by having the glucagon by the bed. Have happy holidays, and take care of your baby girl! Love to you, Ginger
Yes, we checked Kathy twice in the middle of the night, every night, for months after that. We were very paranoid. She saw her endo in September and when he saw I was checking her twice a night, he patted me on the shoulder and said, "She's doing fine - get some sleep!" So I'm now to the point if we are a good number at bedtime (at least 120 - under that she can have a snack, if she wants to), I'm comfortable she can make the whole night. We do have the Glucagon and glucose pills right close by though, just in case!
We have never experienced this, Ethan is 7 and has been diabetic since he was 5. He recently had numbers at 21, 35 and lots in the40's. He gets this virus that stops him from absorbing carbs! Finding him either like that or unresponsive is my biggest fear! I pray for all of you. May this never happen again. We have used the glucagon 3 times to prevent him from going any lower and to help stabilize him in the sleeping hours. Very scary. It is nice to have other people who are going through this. Thank you for sharing. As a mom I do not feel so alone!
I think that is absolutely the biggest fear most of us to deal with and I am so sorry you had to go through that. I think for parents of diabetic children we become the biggest bg monitoring freaks for the fear of missing something! Our family is so new to this that it just becomes an internal obsession of mine to prevent that from happening. The reality is that we are only human and our parent super powers can only prevent so much from happening! I feel for you and your experience but the positive is that you have gained some new experience and will be able to tackle the issue if she ever goes that low again. I have been searching for an alternative to worrying and over testing my daughters bg. I have found that there are dogs specially trained for diabetic service. They can detect low blood sugars and alert a parent or an owner of the change. I am so intrigued by this and believe it is possible for an animal to have this ability. Unfortunately, these animals and the training is expensive and you can not get approved through a non-profit facility for children under 12. I am currently looking into the training myself to be able to have a service dog for our daughter now not later or at least work toward having an service animal in the next few years. Sometimes we have to step outside the box to find our comfort zones. You are doing awesome and you are not alone!
Hi Lauren, My son, Chase, is 10 and has been diabetic for almost 3 years now. I too, am obsessed with his blood sugars, and get up every single night of my life between 1 and 3 am to check his sugars, sometimes more than that in one night, if I am unable to get his sugar back in range with one correction. His is on the Cosmo pump, and it has been a God send for us. It's so much easier than the shots. I feel that at least I can keep his A1C down as well as prevent him for seizures in the night. Hopefully my efforts will help him have less complications as an adult. You're right, I feel like a supermom sometimes with all that I try to tackle, but it has to be done. I have also looked into the service dogs, and the only ones being trained as of now are located in California. They're very expensive and pretty hard to come by. You can, however, have your own animal trained by the professionals to detect blood sugar lows. And no, insurance won't pay for any of that. I guess they are afraid of liability is the reason they don't really recommend them for young children. I'm just hoping for the cure...Here's to all the parent's of kids with T1---God Bless, hope you all have a wonderful Christmas! Ginger
At age two my duaghter was diagnosed with epilepsy after having a seizure that put in the hospital for 6 days. For three years she was on trileptel (seizure medcation) and was still getting unexplianed seizures. Then in April of 2007 she was back in the ICU this time they said it was type 1 diabetes and suspect it was diabetes the whole 3 years. Why it didn't show in the blood no one can explain. We have been through years of seizures and can be very scary.