Colby once was hungry all the time. Now that his carbs were increased his appetite has gone down. Although I still think it was a growth spurt. Anyways, yesterday I had the hardest time getting him to eat any carbs for breakfast and lunch. I prepared his bfast that he asked for, tested, injected, then he did not want to eat and I panic a little when that happens. I actually fed him glucose tabs and sugar juice for bfast. He refused to eat mid-morning snack, had a low before I could even get him to drink juice, treated, bouncing off the walls again. Decided on lunch, tested, no injection needed...again was only interested in his hotdog (just the meat). So got him to eat some mandarin oranges, but had to give him a bunch of glucose tabs since I knew his NPH was going to kick in soon. Afternoon snack of glucose tabs before nap time. Geez louise.
If anyone have a similar experience, please discuss. Is it bad that I just let him eat glucose tabs and drink juice when he will not eat carbs? I had no milk in the house, so usually I would offer that too. Must get to store as milk, juice, and glucose tab stores have been severely depleted :) And maybe I should buy stock in Juicy Juice and Dex4.
Hi my daughter was a picky eater when she was first diagnosed so the docs said to give her food first then injections that way if she did not eat it was not such a panic!! so far it has worked and now she eats everything I give her.
You're not doing anything wrong. He'll get sick of glucose tablets soon enough :o) All kids go through picky stages. The trick is trying to find diverse snacks that keep so they don't go bad during a picky phase.
I would love to give him insulin after seeing what he eats but after mentioning it twice to the endo...they seem hesitant. We are still on a sliding scale too, so I am hesitant to develop my own carb to insulin ratio. Maybe that comes next. Thankfully canned mandarin oranges and canned corn seem to be working this week, but we'll see. He used to want to eat blueberries all day. My got to snack and carb-filler, but he won't even touch them right now. Granola bars might work too. Thanks for your suggestions.
I understand your issues, my son was diagnosed when he had just turned 4 and the food problem was one of the hardest adjustments in the diabetes regimen. Our Endo had him taking Lantus in the am and pm and gave us a carb ratio for all meals, when he was out of range we had to call the Endo and he would tell us how much to give for a correction. 5 months later we went on the pump and had a correction factor for highs. This really helped with the eating thing too. He can eat whenever he wants and the pump will calculate how much insulin to give as well as figure out the correction if needed. No more concern about him eating all his food. we bolus him after he eats, if it is a long meal we give multiple boluses after each portion of food he eats. That keeps his after meal BG in check. You may want to think about another Endo, each one has their own ideas about diabetes management and and we have switched twice. You have to find one that will jive with your lifestyle and listen to your struggles and what is important to you. Also if your son is going low b/c he is not hungry and not eating, then sounds like the amount of insulin needs to be changed. You should not have to feed the insulin. We find that to be a problem too and feel our son eats to much candy to keep his BG above 80. Seems like we should by stock in the candy business as well. Good Luck and let your family and friends support you both!
When Lucas was a toddler we always bolused after meals as per endo. Now at 5, he is a clean your plate kid but if I have doubt whether he will eat it I wait and see. We also do multiple boluses with the pump if we are unsure what he will eat (give him a little insulin up front and the remainder based off of what he actually ate) this is not as easy with injections though. Do you have a pediatric endo? This is key, especially how young Colby is, the care I think is much dfferent. I find it difficult to calculate insulin correctly if Lucas does not eat many carbs - somehow after meal numbers are best if he has a moderate amount of complex carbs and low fat. The low fat is not because he is on a diet (he is so skinny) but the fat makes it very erratic as to when he digests the food, so we will be on the low end and then shoot way up high several hour later.
I guess I am not really sure if our endo is pediatric or not, but they are with Children's Hospital here in San Diego, so I assume that they are. There is another diabetes clinic in SD and in talking to some other moms in the local JDRF, some hated Children's and others love it. So maybe it is a matter of going to both and deciding which works better for the Colbster. And we have a clinic appointment on Monday, so my concerns will be brought up and hopefully they have a better solution. When he justs eats juice or glucose tabs or whatever I can get into him...feeding the insulin, he tends to plummet and then I treat and he is as high as a kite. Just so frustrating. Thanks to all for your suggestions and kind words!
Again, ask your endo on Monday but here is what we found. Lucas is small (and was even smaller when dx at 3) and he does not need 15g to correct a low. Currently, and he is not yet 50 lbs., 1g of carb raises his bg about 8 points. So....if he is 54, he only needs 4-5g total to bring him close to 100. I use skittles as they are almost exactly 1g each. You also have to guess - is he still dropping? Or are we already pretty much bottomed out. If he is running around, I wait a few minutes to make sure his bg raised then follow up with food (peanut butter crackers) but I have to give him insulin for the food. I have experimented and found what works for him and then of course he grows and you have to change it up a little.
Hopefully, you don't mind that I chuckled a little when I read your post. I've been there! I bet most parents have experienced the same issue as well. My son was diagnosed at 2 and we were on lente and then NPH and needed to get carbs in him at certain times. But, there were times he did not want anything. My wife and I tried not to make a big thing out of it and casually went through a list of things he might want to eat. If he did not find anything tempting we would have to up the ante and offer more sweets or get glucose tablets in him. Sometimes we had higher carb juices at home for such situations but often it was just getting glucose tablets in him. Once my son was about 4 there were fewer and fewer episodes of being a picky eater. We are still on shots but use novolog and levemir so we don't have the problem anymore.
As long as you use an insulin with a peak then some days you are going to need to feed your child sugary items when he won't eat otherwise. It stinks but it has to be done. Try to keep his favorite food handy in such situations which may tempt him. If it is a frequent issue you might need to talk to your diabetes team about a 24-hour insulin (Lantus or Levemir) rather than NPH. For our situation, NPH worked really well up until about a year ago. As my son got older, his schedule got busier and NPH was no longer the insulin for us.