What if the child has diabetes

Diabetes - a disease in which the body does not produce insulin. This hormone normally produces pancreas. He needed to glucose, which appears in the blood after a meal, can penetrate into the cells and turn it into energy.

Diabetes is divided into two types:

1. The first cells responsible for insulin, are destroyed. Why is it no one knowsPatient education: Diabetes mellitus type 1. But when insulin is not produced, the glucose remains in the blood and the cells are starving, and this leads to serious consequences.
2. In diabetes, the insulin produced by the second type, but the cells do not respond to it. This disease, which is affected by a combination of genetics and the risk factors.

Usually children get sick the first type of diabetes - a disease that does not depend on lifestyle. But now, Type II diabetesDiabetes in Children and Teens, Once considered a disease of older people, made it to the children's departments. This is attributed to the obesity epidemic in the developed world.

In Russia, about 20% of children unnecessarily fatness, another 15% are obese. Large studies on this topic have been conducted. However, more and more often come to doctors, children with serious obesity.

How do you know that the child has diabetes

Prevent or even predict diabetes of the first type can not. The risk is higher if it is a hereditary disease that is ill someone from the family, but that does not necessarily: diabetes can occur even if the family is all healthy.

Diabetes first type is often overlooked in the early stages, especially in young children, because no one thinks about the disease and the symptoms of hyperglycemia is difficult to see in babies. Therefore, under certain conditions in young children, such as a recurring fungal infection, be sure to check sugar in the blood or urine.

Renata Petrosyan

characteristic symptoms of diabetes:

1. Frequent urination. Kidneys are trying in this way to bring extra sugar and work harder. Sometimes it appears that the child began wetting the bed at night, even if for a long time sleeping without a diaper.
2. Constant thirst. Due to the fact that the body loses a lot of fluid, the baby all the time thirsty.
3. Itchy skin.
4. Losing weight at a normal appetite. The cells do not have enough food, so the body consumes fat stores and destroys the muscle to get energy from them.
5. Weakness. Due to the fact that glucose does not enter the cells, the child is not strong enough.

But these symptoms do not always help to notice the disease in a small child. Children often drink without disease, as a sequence of "drink and write" - the norm for kids. So often children are the first time at a reception at the doctor with serious symptoms of ketoacidosis.

Ketoacidosis - a condition which occurs when intense lipolysis. Glucose does not enter the cells, so the body tries to get energy from fat. Thus produced byproduct - ketonesDKA (Ketoacidosis) & Ketones. When they accumulate in the blood, changing its acidity and cause poisoning. External signs are:

1. Extreme thirst and dry mouth.
2. Dry skin.
3. Stomach ache.
4. Nausea and vomiting.
5. Sharp unpleasant breath.
6. Labored breathing.
7. Confusion, disorientation, loss of consciousness.

Ketoacidosis is dangerous and can lead to coma, so the patient urgently needs medical attention.

Type II diabetes usually comes on strong and obesity can hide for a long time. It is often detected when looking for the cause of other diseases: kidney failure, heart attacks and strokes, blindness.

Most of all for the development of Type II diabetes in children affect weight gain and decreased physical activity. The link between obesity and diabetes among adolescents is higher than that of adults. Heredity also plays a huge role. Between half and three-quarters of children with Type II diabetes have close relatives with the disease. Certain drugs can also disrupt the body's sensitivity to glucose.

Renata Petrosyan

As a rule, suffer from the consequences of the adults who live with diabetes for a long time, and poorly controlled by their state.

How to treat diabetes, and whether it can be prevented

Diabetes can not be cured, the disease, which will have to spend a lifetime.

The disease is of the first type can not be prevented, the patients have to take insulin, which is lacking in their body. Insulin is administered by injection and it is one of the main difficulties in treating children. Daily injections - an ordeal for a child at any age, but not do without them.

Patients with diabetes should always measure your blood sugar levels using a meter and enter the hormone on a specific scheme. To do this, there are syringes with thin needles and syringes-handles: the past is easier to use. But children more convenient to use an insulin pump - a small device, which feeds the hormone through the catheter when it is needed.

For most patients, the first few months of illness associated with the emotional storm. And this time you need to use to get as much information about the disease, about self-control, medical support, to injections became just a part of your everyday life.

Despite the numerous risks associated with the first type of diabetes, the majority of people can continue to live an active lifestyle and have the usual food. When planning exercise and holidays, most children can deal with almost any sport, and sometimes there is ice cream and other sweets.

Renata Petrosyan

Type II diabetes can not always be prevented, but it certainly can reduce the risk if a healthy lifestyle. However, according to Renata Petrosyan craze in fitness and proper nutrition while it affects more adults than children, "A healthy school program leads to a complete absence of free time children. They are engaged in various circles, and often spend a lot of time in an inactive state. Gadgets also did not motivate the teenagers to move. Availability sweets, fast carbs, chips, candy, crackers and other things a significant contribution to the development of childhood obesity. "

The endocrinologist recommends to protect children from excess food and strongly encourage any mobility. This is better than to comply with low-carbohydrate diet, drink special drugs and adhere to treatment as necessary in diabetes of the second type.

What should parents do if the child has diabetes

Diabetes - a serious diagnosis, at first it is shocking. In life with a first type of diabetes that can not be corrected and diet pills, will always be present rigid disciplineHyperglycemia and Diabetic Ketoacidosis: You need time to check the level of sugar, carbohydrates are considered and inject insulin. This is especially difficult given the fact that the first type of diabetes can occur even in very young children. But with diabetes can live a full life and teach the child. How to do it, Layfhaker asked Korchevskiy Mary, mother of the child with the first type of diabetes.

Usually, parents will learn the diagnosis of the child in the hospital, where for the first time are therapy and diabetes school. Unfortunately, the hospital recommendations often at odds with reality, and after leaving the relatives do not know what to grab first. Maria advises a to-do-list:

1. Even in the hospital make glucose monitoring system, to meet fully prepared statement. After detection of diabetes is very important to learn to control the child's condition, no monitoring system is much more difficult for both children and parents.
2. Buy the injection port. If the monitoring system helps to replace the permanent sample of blood from a finger, then the injection port helps make fewer shots when you have to inject insulin. Children can not tolerate the fact of the injection, and the smaller the needle, the better.
3. Buy a kitchen scale. This must-have, you can even buy a model with a built-counting of proteins, fats and carbohydrates.
4. Buy a sweetener. Many children is very difficult given the rejection of the sweet. And sweets, especially at first, will be banned. Then you learn how to control the disease so that you can afford them, but it later.
5. Choose a product that will be used to improve low sugar. For example, this may be a juice or marmalade. It should always be in the child with him.
6. Get a mobile app for counting carbohydrates in foods.
7. Keep a journal. Best fit notebooks to write foreign words with three columns per page: time, sugar, food, insulin dose.
8. Do not get carried away with complementary and alternative medicine. Everyone wants to help the child and are ready to go, but the healers, homeopaths and magicians will not be saved in diabetes. Do not waste their energy and money.

What benefits put the child with diabetes

Default children diabetics give out everything you need: Test strips for glucometer, insulin, needles for injection pens, supplies to the pump. From region to region, the situation varies, but in general the provision of medicines shortages there. Test strips families have to buy more, but there were available glucose monitoring technology, it is their recommended Maria Korchevskaya.

glucose monitoring devices are available, they are often more profitable to buy than to buy strips and constantly make samples from the fingers of children. System every five minutes of sending data on smartphones child and parents, and to the cloud, in real time, show the level of blood sugar.

Maria Korchevskaya

You can draw a disability - a legal status that a medical supply is irrelevant. Rather, it gives additional privileges and benefits: social benefits, vouchers, tickets.

With Disabilities is a paradoxical situation: all know that diabetes is incurable, but the child must annually confirm the status of a disabled person and pass a medical examination. To do this, go to the hospital and collect a stack of documents, even if the diabetes is compensated and the child normally feels. In some cases the disability is removed, for it is necessary to struggle.

A child with diabetes can attend kindergarten, but it involves a lot of difficulties. It is difficult to imagine that a child in kindergarten educators will make an injection or a three-year kid will be calculates the dose of the hormone, which he had to take.

Another thing, if the child will be properly programmed devices that are designed for diabetics. Technical devices provide a different quality of life.

Maria Korchevskaya

If a child has a device for monitoring sugar and programmed pump, then it is enough to press a few buttons. Then the additional infrastructure and the specialized agencies are not needed. Therefore, all efforts should be cast on the technical equipment.

How to learn more

Unfortunately, in Russian does not so many resources that explain how much easier and more comfortable to live with diabetes. But on the Web a lot of information about the disease:

• The global community of diabetics →
• Fund DiaTribe →
• The charitable organization Beyond Type 1 →
• American Diabetes Association →
• Diabetes School →