I am having a real hard time with my 13 year old daughter’s diabetes control. Her A1C ( 8.8) has been climbing and she lies about he BG and doesn’t bother testing. Lately we are lucky if she boluses for her carbs. She is embarrassed of her disease ( and me of course).
I just caught her lying about he BG again. She is over 300 and lied that she was 140 so I would let her eat
some dessert. She has been below 200 only for about 2 hours in the last 24. I have her pump set to a +30% basal
and she has had as much as 11 units on board. THat made her drop down to 180 but then it stopped there and started climbing again. She just started her period about a month ago and it may be near again.
I gave her a new site too.
I am not sure how much more insulin I can pump into her.
Hello-
While my son who is T1D is only 7, I teach middle school students, and have had a few T1D kids in my classes over the years. Your daughter is at an age where they are going through huge physical and emotional changes. Both impact their blood glucose levels. One of my students fell into the same feelings of embarrassment and not wanting to feel different. It took several discussions and the nurse meeting with this student before she began to come around. If your daughter feels you are only her mother nagging at her, is there someone else she can speak with? Her diabetes is nothing to be embarrassed of.
This is common at this age to not want to bolus or do blood glucose checks. Is there someone at her doctor’s office she may listen to with respect to the long term repercussions of not taking care of her body?
Good luck.
A lot of teens with type 1 do the exact same thing. This link from a few years ago sums it all up really well. I loved both the article and all the people who replied to it. Diabetes Blog: Diabetes Information, News & Resources
On a practical note, growth and menses hormones block insulin sensitivity, so it’s common to need more insulin at those times. I’m also wondering if your daughter’s basal rates and carb factor need to be increased. If she’s always high at the same times of day, call her doctor for recommendations.
Don’t judge your daughter for test results. It is frustrating to know you’re doing badly and have it confirmed every time you test. It’s even worse to have your parents nag you about the failure. Advise your daughter not to see her meter as a judge, but instead just take some insulin for the highs and eat some glucose for the lows and go on with life. If there are patterns of highs and lows, then adjust pump settings.
To help your daughter, explain that you understand why she is frustrated. Maybe you have a personal struggle (weight, smoking, etc.) that you can share. Ask if there’s anything you can do to help her and tell her you love her.
As a teen I skipped shots and rarely tested. In college I went to the hospital one week for a severe low and the very next week with DKA. But I survived and am now 40 with no complications and a reasonable A1c with few lows. My parents begged me to do better, I met with a diabetes counselor for years, and my doctors tried to scare me straight. None of it worked. What helped me was getting older and realizing I was wasting my own time. I realized if my blood sugars are better managed then I feel good. Plus highs give you had breath and make your skin look pale, which is not what any girl wants. Now that I’m a wife and parent myself, I obviously want to be healthy for my family. It is hard to watch your child struggle, but know the situation is not hopeless.
I believe you have gotten some really great advice here but, I just want to bring up something else to keep in the back of your mind, and this is not to scare you at all. But, just to keep you aware of what happens with Teen Girls and some boys and even adults. It is called Diabulimia a type of eating disorder where you manipulate your insulin doses and skip on purpose to lose weight. JDRF has a great article Diabulimia: Skipping Insulin to Lose Weight which gives some advice on what to look for and resources if needed.
Our daughter is a diabetic she is 14 & this sounds very much like our situation one year ago. This was very difficult for us & our daughter. For this post I will refer to my daughter as Amy. Unfortunately it is all trial & error. Reflecting back it was not just one thing that turned the light switch on for Amy. We explained that the only people that would take care of her would be herself & of course us. Having her independence was one of the main factors. We told her we can respect wanting to be able to do things with friends & not have us calling her constantly or restricting her to only be at our house. So we came to an agreement, she works hard at taking care of herself consistently & we would give her more freedom (independance) . This realistically was the only way we could feel that she would be safe at friends houses if she took care of herself. Amy took well to this & it gave her a chance to prove herself. The deal 2 1/2 weeks by herself & us not bothering her about her BS as long as she told us when she was high or low (these number are specific to her) . We would check her levels every day without bugging her about it. We checked every day just to hold her accountable she knew this. Everything out in the open. She worked hard we supported her in doing so & helped when we could or needed to. Amy did great & she noticed that she didn’t feel like crap anymore. Felt great hearing her say that. This worked for us along with other things counselling & support from other diabetics. She likes videos on youtube & found some other people that can relate to her. Here are a couple of links to a someone she likes another person with diabeties - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/creativeboss24?feature=watch http://www.youtube.com/user/MadeYewLook/videos
Lots of things play into the outcome & it will be specific to your daughter. Hope you all find a way to get to that next step in her life. Feel free to message me.
Ugh, so sorry to hear this but for my own selfish reasons it is comforting to know that my son isn’t the only one. He just turned 15 years old and was dx in Sept of 2013 and is out of control too. His doctors have already removed his pump. His last A1C was over 11. I Started paying him to test so he is doing that more often but sneaks all kinds of bad food (like whole bags of candy, entire cartons of ice cream etc) and won’t test before or after eating them. He frequently has readings of HI and refuses to change injection sites so now he is building up resistance. He has been put in the hospital multiple times due to being non-compliant but as soon as he gets out the door of the hospital it starts again. He won’t take insulin or BG monitor anywhere with him.
It is SO frustrating. I always thought it was just him because he is this way with everything. Won’t do school work and is failing miserably, doesn’t take his thyroid meds etc. he has also just been dx with Eosinophilic Esophagitis and I know that is going to just be another nightmare with him.
I would give anything to fast-forward time and make him 30 :-(.
To LP: I am a 15 year old girl. I was diagnosed with T1D 11 years ago. My A1C is a little out of whack as well( as high as 9.2) but my doctor has told me that at this time being a teen and all, A1C could run a little high. I am also on thyroid meds and let me tell you, it definantly helps to take it,not only because you should, but when I don’t I notice I eat more. And that’s when my blood sugar gets high. Also, eating too many sweets is bad, but the key is not to fully deprive him of sweets, just allow him small amounts every now and then. Recently I switched to carb count instead of calories, and that has helped my blood sugar levels out drastically. It was hard for me to switch over because of doing the calorie count for so long. I also have an insulin pump, which is helpful. I’ve had it since December 2008. I have also had a service dog, they also help quite a bit. If you have any questions or would like to talk I would certainly be glad to.