October 26, 2007

They Change Fast

I read a comment by a parent who's son dropped from the 200 to the 60 very quickly. He had felt low but tested high, then normal then low. Hand washing was suspected as a possible source of a false high but he had washed.

The little dude kept saying he felt low so they kept checking.

Way to go!

First and foremost trust a child that says they don't feel right, there are long term implications of that trust as significant as the short term implications of a low. Kids need to know that we respect what they feel. Hopefully they see that and since we respect them they should respect them selfs too.

Meters are lagging indicators I don't know how or why blood drops rapidly but there are plenty of folks who've see it. Maybe it is because blood takes time to move around, I don't know. We have seen rapid changes, and I will not discount that it happens. This is one of the issues that makes people worry about CGM as the fluid they test is even more of a lag than blood.

Some insulins are less predictable than others. NPH can be great one day and hit like a ton of bricks the next. So who knows maybe this was one of NPH's little tricks.

But that why lags happen or how meters work isn't really what it is all about. The big issue is trust and respect. If the kids says they feel low, check. If the meter says something other than what the kids feels keep trusting the child.

Washing fingers and retesting is good sound practice, so is respecting what the child if feeling and saying well maybe you are feeling what happening before the meter shows it and we should keep an eye on it.

Things change. Sometimes they change fast. You want to be sitting back, with grey hair, saying they change, meaning grow up, so fast, what shouldn't change is valuing what kids feel.

I think it was some genius like Plato, Aristotle or Einstein who said YDMV - LOL -

Sometimes what varies is how fast it varies.

Care, respect, love aren't diabetes, they don't vary.


Oh and keep the tabs and glucagon handy. 

1 comment :

  1. Hi,

    So true...I was one of those kids long ago, back in 1983 I still used the wonderful 'test tube' method (to this day I think that's why I HATE the color orange!). It's also good to remind kids that, while meters are very accurate, they are just machines and the gauge could be wrong. We are all dealing with imperfect tools and there is no such thing as a 100% accurate reading. There have been many times I've felt 'off' even though I had a perfect 'score'. Hang in there and keep testing!

    Thanks for posting!
    Kathy (now 36, T1 since '83)

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