“My son has hypoglycemia episodes often. What can we do to treat this?”
My son is 10 years old and was diagnosed with diabetes about 2 years back. He keeps having hypoglycemia episodes often. What can be done to prevent them?
4 Answers
Endocrinologist could check short- and long-acting insulin combination. High protein with most meals helps. Good to carry Glucerna bars or shakes in extreme cases.
Hypoglycemic episodes in a diabetic patient may be due to taking more insulin, skipping food, mismatch between the amount of food and insulin, a lump on the injection site, physician activity etc. To avoid low blood glucose you will need to check blood glucose more often and give insulin appreciate to the amount of food consumed and the lever of blood glucose. I.e you need proper carbohydrate counting and appropriate insulin dosage. And account for physical activity as well. He should also be on flexible insulin regiment and explore the use of insulin pumps and use of blood glucose sensors. These Will help you manage his diabetes much better. Also make sure he doesn't have brittle diabetes. In that case you will need more help from your endocrinologist.
Good luck
Good luck
Stuart Jay Brink
Endocronologist (Pediatric)
Excess hypoglycemia often results from mis-matched insulin, food and activity when someone has type 1 diabetes. Key is getting on a stricter schedule to match these up and having more up-to-date information about carb counting, glycemic index, lot of BG testing and analysis to look for patterns. Important to review this with your son's diabetes treatment team
to see if they have specific suggestions since they will know him individually. Also, it's important to make sure your son's education about his diabetes is up-to-date. Best books ares the Pink Panther Understanding Insulin Dependent Diabetes by Chase and Maahs and the Type 1 Diabetes manual by Hanas; both can be purchased on line or special ordered through any bookstore.
Often, changing to a more "aggressive" multidose insulin (MDI) regimen will also help, sometimes switching to a different type of basal insulin (i.e., more stable basaglar so fewer peaks and valleys of insulin). Sometimes changing times of dosing. Insulin pumps especially associated with continuous glucose monitoring systems (CGMS) like the Medtronic 670G and Guardian systems talk to each other and identify hypoglycemia automatically, send alarms and even respond in advance of hypoglycemia to help minimize or prevent low sugar levels. This options also should be discussed with the diabetes treatment team, too. The more severe the hypoglycemic events and the more frequent they are occurring, the more urgent to update the information for the family and to have these discussions with the diabetes treatment team.
Stuart Brink, MD
to see if they have specific suggestions since they will know him individually. Also, it's important to make sure your son's education about his diabetes is up-to-date. Best books ares the Pink Panther Understanding Insulin Dependent Diabetes by Chase and Maahs and the Type 1 Diabetes manual by Hanas; both can be purchased on line or special ordered through any bookstore.
Often, changing to a more "aggressive" multidose insulin (MDI) regimen will also help, sometimes switching to a different type of basal insulin (i.e., more stable basaglar so fewer peaks and valleys of insulin). Sometimes changing times of dosing. Insulin pumps especially associated with continuous glucose monitoring systems (CGMS) like the Medtronic 670G and Guardian systems talk to each other and identify hypoglycemia automatically, send alarms and even respond in advance of hypoglycemia to help minimize or prevent low sugar levels. This options also should be discussed with the diabetes treatment team, too. The more severe the hypoglycemic events and the more frequent they are occurring, the more urgent to update the information for the family and to have these discussions with the diabetes treatment team.
Stuart Brink, MD
The most important thing to do right now is to find out why he has low blood sugar. Then treatment came be precisely given. Take your son to a pediatric endocrinologist to have him evaluated.
