Hi All -we are new to this with our 9 year old Son being diagnosed at Thanksgiving. He seems to be having lots of lows but he knows it and we get him some carbs and he is then fine again. What I have read about lows at night have me scared. I go into his room several times a night. The chances of me being in his room when he was actually having a problem is low so I am wondering if my concerns are valid, if there is something I can do to help ensure he doesn't go to low or if anyone else has a creative way to help us deal with this concern.
I understand completely! My daughter doesn't really know when she's low, unless she's REALLY low. And she did have a seizure in the middle of the night once. I posted about this in this area somewhere if you would like to read it. Trust me - it is something you do not want to happen. I was checking her sugars twice a night after that for about 2 months. Her endo told me that as long as her numbers at bedime were good (like in the low hundreds), she should be fine all night. Of course, I still check every once in a while, but the comfort in it comes with time.
I always slept better knowing she was okay, so I say, go ahead and test him if you can. Once you feel more comfortable with the numbers, you could probably back off a little. Your doctor can help you out with that too.
Good luck!
Vicky
Hi Lori-
I am also new at this. My 9yr old son was diagnosed on Nov. 13, 2008. I was told by his endo that if his numbers were above 135 at bedtime then there was a slim chance of him falling low during the night. However I still sneak in his room sometimes in the middle of the night and test, It is still to scary for me.
Hello...very, very new to this myself. How things just happened last week for us, is that my son (3 year-old Colby) was getting too low close to bed time so they lowered his dinner-time fast-acting insulin by one unit. Maybe talk to your endo about his lows and then see if they have any suggestions about adjusting his insulin. And maybe you already have and they decided not to change his levels. So then just test is my suggestion. I have thought about it with my little guy and may start doing it at least once a night.
I get up several times a night to check my son, Peter, who just turned 5 and was diagnosed in may of 2008. But I found the best bedtime snack for him and I don't really worry anymore.. It is cereal brownies--I make them from scratch--they have oatmeal, walnuts, wheatgerm, semisweet chocolate chips, non fat dry milk, butter , vanilla, applesauce,eggs--and you can add a tablespoon of brown sugar too.
He has a 1inch by 1 inch square with a small cup of milk every night and he has really done very well with these--He really likes chocolate--and by the way chocolate is good for kids with diabetes(semisweeet and dark chocolate) because it has a low glycemic index
if you want recipe, I'll send it--Its in the Kids Food and Diabetes Family Cookbook by Gloria Loring
And don't be afraid to tweak the recipe according to your childs tastes
Petesmom
Can you send the recipe? Thanks it sounds great. Our daughter (age 3) was diagnosed November 2008. We've had some lows but we've been adjusting the insulin. So far the favorite bedtime snack is Sunflower Nut butter on a graham cracker sandwich. But yours sound really good, and she loves chocolate.
Thanks,
Gary
6 oz semisweet chocolate chips (1 cup)
1/3 cup butter or margarine
1 scant cup quick rolled oats
1/4 cup wheat germ
1/3 cup nonfat dry milk
1/2 tspn baking powder
1/4 tspn salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 eggs
1 tspn vanilla extract
1 tbspn brown sugar
4 oz unsweetened applesauce
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
In the top of double boiler, melt butter and chocolate chips. Set aside
In a medium bowl, combine oats, wheat germ , nonfat dry milk, baking powder,salt and nuts
set aside.
In a large bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the brown sugar,vanilla and applesauce. Stir in the melted chocolate. Fold in the oats mixture. Pour the batter into a greased 8-inch square pan
Bake for 20-25 min
Cut into 5 strips in each directiion
Yield 25 brownies-- A 1 inch brownie has 110 calories and 10 grams of carbohydrate
2 grams of protein and 7 grams of fat
Ethan has had diabetes since he was five. he is now 7. I can tell you for me I have not found a way to ease the overnite lows fear. I was very interested to see the posts that followed this question. My biggest fear is that I will miss something. Sometimes I will wake up from a dead sleep and sit staight up in my bed and rush to check him. I do not know why. I think you just never stop thinking about it. Ethan plays hockey so four nights a week we check him up to four times during his sleeping time. I am afraid of the after effect of activity. So do not feel like you should not feel this way. I am sure there are many more people who do the same. You are just a good parent who wants the best for your child. Hopefully with time you and I will get comfortable with this thing and get a good nights sleep, lol! I would suggest the talking to the doc about these lows he may have the solution. The snacks do sound awesome to! So, thanks to all that replied to this it helped me as well. Man, I love this site!
Frequent testing is the answer at this point, but soon you'll be able to investigate the insulin pump (which provides much better control allowing you to change basal rates every half an hour according to your child's needs) and even a continuous glucose monitor if your son experiences hypoglycemic unawareness. My daughter's basal rates are actually higher at night.
My daughter acts funny and makes noises in the night when she has a major variance. I put a baby monitor in her room so that I will be able to hear her. I also, sorry to all parents who wish to judge me, allow her to sleep in my bed whenever she wants. My husband is military so he's not home often so it isn't really crowded anyway. When he comes home he's a little bummed though. LOL
I don’t think we ever get over the fear of a seizure at night. Heck I know a person who still checks her son at night when he comes home from college!
My 12 yr old was dx at 20 mos and there have not been many nights that one of us have not been up at 2 am to check her. When she wears her Freestyle Navigator we have peace of mind but she does not have much real-estate so she does not wear it often. We do use Navigator for sleepovers and that has given us some piece of mind…..but not completely. She’s been pumping since age 3 and I cannot imagine life without her pump but while that helps, it is not a guarantee. Prior to going to bed we check BG and then see how much IOB (insulin on board) she has. If she’s between 115-125, has no IOB and has not been overly active, we let her go to sleep. If she has the same BG but IOB, we give her carbs…..same if she’s been overly active.
My poor wife has to worry about me also…..but at least my Navigator wakes me if I’m going low J
I know what you mean . My daughter was dx oct 3, 2008 and she is 2 1/2 and we do the same thing a night. She was on nph the first 2 weeks when we took her home the hospital and we were checking her bs 12:00am and 4:00am. It was really scary. We would have to wake her up at 4:00 to give her juice or cake gel.... She wasnt found of that.Finally we stopped giving her the nph @ night ,her bs stopped going so low. But now we have to check her number at 8:00pm right before she goes to bed even though she has no more insulin on board and if she is between 100- 150 we have to give her carbs too. Ughhh it really does stink
We've been lucky - of sorts - in that our son has nightmares when he's going low. It's a mixed blessing, I suppose...on the one hand you have to hold your sobbing child, on the other, we didn't have to deal with a seizure or hospital trip.
After a couple years we've gotten fairly comfortable knowing his 'good' levels going into the night, but after a couple days of hard activity we still trip it up and will often test as we're going to bed (which is about when his NPH is peaking) and we'll give him anywhere from 5-15 carbs to correct.
On New Year's Eve this year he stayed up 6 hours past his bed time, we corrected him four times while he was awake and once again in the middle of the night...and he was still under 70 when he woke up.
My advice would just be to not obsess, but if you have reason to be concerned then test!
[quote user="rmeadowsaprn"]
Frequent testing is the answer at this point, but soon you'll be able to investigate the insulin pump (which provides much better control allowing you to change basal rates every half an hour according to your child's needs) and even a continuous glucose monitor if your son experiences hypoglycemic unawareness. My daughter's basal rates are actually higher at night.
My daughter acts funny and makes noises in the night when she has a major variance. I put a baby monitor in her room so that I will be able to hear her. I also, sorry to all parents who wish to judge me, allow her to sleep in my bed whenever she wants. My husband is military so he's not home often so it isn't really crowded anyway. When he comes home he's a little bummed though. LOL
[/quote]You won't hear me judging - Kathy sleeps with us every night! We have a big enough bed though! After her seizure we both swore we wouldn't kick her out until she was ready. The fact that she was sleeping with us when she had her seizure probably saved her life.
My 9yr old son was just diagnosed in November and ever since he is terrifed he will die during the night or something bad will happen and I am all the way down the hall. So like you I allow him to sleep with me whenever he feels scared or uncomfortable. But I like the idea of the baby monitor that was suggested, to bad we just got rid of ours :)
Thankyou all so much for your thoughts and suggestions. we are so new at this
that we can use all the help we can get.
Dont forget that laughter is life. I always try to
make sure my child smiles before he falls asleep
you to will sleep better.
Good Luck
When my daughter was first diagnosed she was put on a fast acting insulin (humalog) and NPH. It was horrible. She was high then she was low for no reason. We switch doctors and they put her on Lantus (a 24 hr slow acting insulin) and Novolog ( a fast acting insulin). It changed our lives. With Lantus there are no peaks. It was a steady release of insulin all day. Her numbers improved and she did not have to eat every 2 hours. You should discuss Lantus with your doctor.
She is now on a pump and life is easier.
annalia, how old was ur daughter when she was dx. Thats the insulin we have my daughter on and she will be 3 next month. I have just changed our endo and gonna visit with the new one soon. They told me she was too young to be on lantus and the pump??? hmmmm
Hi denisem5823. My daughter had just turned 7 years old. I don't think there is an age restriction for Lantus. When we started going to the pump classes to get familiar with them, there was a little boy, who wasn't even walking yet, going on a pump and Lantus. We were not on NPH for a long time (about a month) before we changed doctors and oh my God what a difference. It comes in a pen, throw it in your purse and go on. No more needles, vials and cold packs.
I will ask my edo about the Lantus and the pump just to confirm and I'll let you know.
My daughter is on the OmniPod pump. It was actually invented by a doctor who had a liitle boy with type 1. He wanted something that would not get in the way of a toddlers everyday life. Come to think of it, they advertise a little baby in diapers wearing the pod. It is tubeless and great. Since your daughter is so young I think you should really look into it. The website is MyOmniPod.com. You wouldn't have to worry about tubes getting in the way when she was playing. My daughter forgets she has it on. It can go in the water. My daughter swam with it all summer.
If you need more personal experience info on this pump please ask. I think it is great and it will change your daughters life and yours for the better. No doubt about it.
Great to hear from you. I just started with this website and I think I'm getting addicted.
I will get back to you.
Annalia
denisem5823, If I remember correctly, Lantus does not have approval for Children under 6 and that maybe driving your MD's remarks. That said, many MD's write of label and there are many out there on Lantus under 6. To learn more about Lantus, check out this link at CWD: http://www.childrenwithdiabetes.com/d_0n_115.htm While Lantus is supposedly a 24 hr insulin, that is not the case with some and some MD's are prescribing it 2x a day. Also, keep in mind that once injected, there is no going back so you cannot do a temp reduction like a pump and there is no good way of addressing a dawn phenomena. Lantus does work well for some but does not offer the flexibility for pumps.
As for not putting a young child on a pump, the issues revolve more around than the parents and the environment than anything else. Sure the child needs to be a willing participant but the support system is very important. For example if the child is living with divorced parents and one is unwilling to embrace it, that situation will be unhealthy. Daycare also plays into it somewhat. If however there is a good support system and the child is up for it, I believe it is the best way to manage T1D. My 12 year old starting pumping prior to her 3rd B-day. There is a good mail list called Parents of Pumps on IP… http://www.insulin-pumpers.org/mailjoin.shtml where you can learn more. Also, I cannot say enough about the CWD community……lots of info and forums on every topic out there.
I agree with you on the pump issue. The parents have to be totally ready for it. The children learn from you and if you are confident with it they will be too. Now I look back and wonder why anyone with type 1 would be on injections rather than a pump. It is so much more flexible when it comes to activities, food, sleeptime and when you are sick. You can raise/lower the basel in seconds. Once you inject that is it. No turning back. But until someone is on a pump I think Lantus is the best long-acting insulin.
annalia