Teens & Diabetes | Diabetes Canada
When children are diagnosed with diabetes, parents need to be very involved in learning about the condition, participating in the routines at an appropriate level and sharing management decisions. As children grow into young adults, they need to learn the details of their condition and how to care for themselves. For teens and young adults: learning to help yourself Are you thinking about moving away from home to go to school or to work in a different city? Are you planning to travel, move in with friends or simply be more independent with your diabetes management? If so, congratulations, you are taking a big step and its normal to have questions on what that all means while living with type 1 diabetes. In the past, it was likely very easy to consult or rely on your parents to make decisions or keep track of your diabetes. Now that youre ready to step into adulthood, many things are going to be your responsibility and its ok to wonder how its all going to work. To learn more about eating well on your own, dating with diabetes, driving, and more, please read Generation D: For young adults living with type 1 diabetes . Note that these tips are not meant to replace the advice and help that your doctor and diabetes health-care team provide. It is important you create and regularly update your own personalized diabetes treatment plan. As a child matures, the challenge for many families is finding the balance between parental monitoring and teen independence. On the one hand, careful diabetes management is vitally important to the immediate and long-term health of your child. On the other hand, you cant be with your child 24/7. Even if you could take total control of your childs diabetes (which you cant), teens are more likely to rebel against tight restrictions. Rather, you Continue reading >>
Teenage Diabetes | Joslin Diabetes Center
Teenagers typically want to spend more time on their own and have to juggle school, extracurricular activities, and friends. Diabetes management may not be the number one priority and changing hormones can mean more problems with blood glucose control. That is why it is so important to getas much support as possible with diabetes management. One way our team provides additional support is through our discussion board for teens. Other teens with diabetes may be going through similar things and this is a safe place where teens can ask questions and find out how others are dealing with diabetes. Plus, as a teen with diabetes, you may have a suggestion for someone elses problem. Parents of teens have challenges too. For them we have a discussion board for parents as well as a support group of Joslin teens. In the summer, we organize tours of Fenway Park for preteens, teens, and their parents. These tours offer the opportunity for families to meet others with diabetes, as well as have a chance to interact with Joslin Pediatric staff. Joslin's Fenway Park Tours are led by a family support specialist as well as pediatric diabetes medical specialists. Continue reading >>
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- American Diabetes Association® Releases 2018 Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes, with Notable New Recommendations for People with Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes
Mother Shares Her Child's Struggle With Type 1 Diabetes
This was me in high shool, but it extended through college. My college experience was a bad one as a result. In retrospect, I ended up with a math degree from an ivy league school, and have no complcations, but I nonetheless feel like I threw away four years of my life feeling awful, physically and emotionally, and I have no way of getting them back.I don't have any advice though...I knew what to do, I kept trying to make fresh starts, I just couldn't make myself do it. How honest !- Thank you for opening the door to conversation between parents, between parents and children, and for raising awareness that we must stay aware of and involved in our adolescent's diabetes care. Moira, this is an amazing post. And not just for moms and dads of T1s! As a PWD, I can say that - at 31 years old, after 16 years with T1 - I struggle every single day to find that balance between self-care and freedom. It's the biggest problem I think diabetics face, and is why doctors all cluck their tongues about "compliance."When you never get a break from something like this, when you never get a day off or a moment to think about something else (because the D is always, always, always there), it is hard to maintain the energy and commitment required to take care of yourself. The diabetes wagon is horrifically slippery - I know I've spent all these years hopping on it and falling right back off. It's work. It's not fun. It can be draining. And I know I can have a lot of resentment about the fact that this is what I have to spend a lot of my time and emotional energy on.Thanks for your post - Lauren sounds like a smart, tough cookie, and that's half the battle. I'm the father of an 8 year old and I am not sitting here clucking my tongue. On the contrary I feel your pain and am fully aware I hav Continue reading >>
Diabetes In Children And Teens
Until recently, the common type of diabetes in children and teens was type 1. It was called juvenile diabetes. With Type 1 diabetes, the pancreas does not make insulin. Insulin is a hormone that helps glucose,or sugar, get into your cells to give them energy. Without insulin, too much sugar stays in the blood. Now younger people are also getting type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes used to be called adult-onset diabetes. But now it is becoming more common in children and teens, due to more obesity. With Type 2 diabetes, the body does not make or use insulin well. Children have a higher risk of type 2 diabetes if they are overweight or have obesity, have a family history of diabetes, or are not active. Children who are African American, Hispanic, Native American/Alaska Native, Asian American, or Pacific Islander also have a higher risk. To lower the risk of type 2 diabetes in children Have them maintain a healthy weight Be sure they are physically active Have them eat smaller portions of healthy foods Limit time with the TV, computer, and video Children and teens with type 1 diabetes may need to take insulin. Type 2 diabetes may be controlled with diet and exercise. If not, patients will need to take oral diabetes medicines or insulin. A blood test called the A1C can check on how you are managing your diabetes. Continue reading >>
Type One Teen Diabetes Burnout Survival Guide
Type One Teen Diabetes Burnout Survival Guide The clich opening to any blog related to diabetes is as follows: On October 2, 2002 at the age of four my life was changed forever. I was tragically diagnosed with Type Onediabetes. I will save you from all of the sappy, over exaggerated stuff. But, yes, surprisingly or not, I have Type Onediabetes. I have lived with this disease for over 12 years and still make mistakes. As I was diagnosed at such a young age (4) I do not know anything different than constantly worrying about my blood sugar. As a child I just assumed everyone had to cope with diabetes, it was a part of life and simply something I had to deal with. Fast-forward a couple of years to middle school, my mind set drastically changed. I wasnt upset I had diabetes, I was FURIOUS. The usual, why me thoughts occurred at least twice a day. It was totally unfair I had to deal with diabetes when my friends biggest worries were how they were going to get home from a Friday night football game. I was worrying about not waking up the next morning due to a seizure. By the time high school arrived, I was fed up with diabetes. Like any other teenager, I wanted to fit in and be apart of the cool crowd. As you can imagine, I was unlike any of my friends; none of them had an insulin pump attached to their hip or had to prick their finger every time they ate. I wanted a boyfriend, but what boy would ever date me, with all this baggage? I wanted to wear a pretty dress, but could never find a place to hide my insulin pump. I wanted a good nights rest, but was woken up to test my blood every night. In my eyes, diabetes stopped me from being a normal person. I was passed the pissed off stage and arrived at the stage of sadness and disappointment. I decided the most logical solution Continue reading >>
10 Tips For Teenagers To Live Well With Type 1 Diabetes
Twitter Summary: @asbrown1 shares his top 10 tips for living w/ #T1D, straight from presentation to 100+ teens at #CWDFFL15 At the Children with Diabetes Friends For Life Conference this month, I had the incredible opportunity to speak to ~100 teenagers with diabetes. My talk, “10 Tips for Living Well with Type 1,” was a lot of fun to put together, and our team thought diaTribe readers might be interested in seeing it. I agonized over how to present this so that it wouldn’t come across as a lecture – even my teenage self would not react well to some of the advice (“Sleep seven hours a night? Hah! I have sports plus exams plus the next level to beat in Halo 3!”). I concluded that the best thing I could do was make this session a conversation, but ground it in lessons I’ve learned over time. Thankfully, I also had the amazing FFL staff by my side to help guide the discussion. The session reminded me of something that I intuitively know but often forget: each person’s diabetes is completely different, and what works for me won’t work for everyone. And equally important, what works for me may change over time – it certainly has since I was a teenager. I’m sharing the slides below in case they’re useful, but my biggest hope is that it gets you thinking about your own diabetes. What motivates you? What drags you down? What can you do better today? Who can you reach out to for support? Let us what you think by email or on Twitter. As the oldest of six kids, I had a lot of responsibility from a young age, and my Mom was also a very hands-off parent; both helped me take the reins of my diabetes from an early age. I hope everyone can find the right balance between taking care of their own diabetes, but also relying on their parents for support when needed. Continue reading >>
Diabetes In Teens: Symptoms, Causes And Treatment
Do teenagers get diabetes? You bet, they do. Diabetes is a great leveler and doesn’t distinguish between who its affecting. Bad genes, bad eating habits, sedentary lifestyle – all of these contribute to the onset of diabetes, even in teens and kids. It’s rough being a teenager, as you go through a multitude of changes and transitions that can feel overwhelming all by themselves. Add to that a diagnosis of Type 2 Diabetes and life can become downright challenging. Type 2 diabetes in teens is becoming commonplace these days. What’s worse, the disease can progress a lot more aggressively in teens than adults. For teens with diabetes, controlling blood sugar levels with changing bodies, lifestyles, routines and responsibilities can be more challenging. While grappling with the demands of high school or college, the responsibility of holding onto their first job, and the possibility of an active social life, the additional task of taking care of diabetes seems like an extra burden. However, it’s crucial for teenagers to understand that living a healthy lifestyle as a diabetic goes a long way to prevent alarming heart and kidney diseases at a young age. Learning to Manage Glucose Levels at School Uncontrolled blood sugar levels mean having to deal with complications like eye damage, kidney damage, nerve damage, and skin problems later on in life. However, to a teenager, relating to these long-term benefits of managing blood sugar levels can be difficult. Result – a fairly low motivation to deal with diabetes. However, let us assure you, there are plenty of short-term benefits of teenagers with diabetes learning to manage their glucose levels every day. Like – better focus and mental acuity at school, more energy and hence improved performance at sports, healthie Continue reading >>
Type 2 Diabetes: What Is It?
Diabetes is a disease that affects how the body uses glucose , the main type of sugar in the blood. Our bodies break down the foods we eat into glucose and other nutrients we need, which are then absorbed into the bloodstream from the gastrointestinal tract. The glucose level in the blood rises after a meal and triggers the pancreas to make the hormone insulin and release it into the bloodstream. But in people with diabetes, the body either can't make or can't respond to insulin properly. Insulin works like a key that opens the doors to cells and lets the glucose in. Without insulin, glucose can't get into the cells (the doors are "locked" and there is no key) and so it stays in the bloodstream. As a result, the level of sugar in the blood remains higher than normal. High blood sugar levels are a problem because they can cause a number of health problems. The two types of diabetes are type 1 and type 2. Both make blood sugar levels higher than normal but they do so in different ways. Type 1 diabetes happens when the immune system attacks and destroys the cells of the pancreas that produce insulin. Kids with type 1 diabetes need insulin to help keep their blood sugar levels in a normal range. Type 2 diabetes is different. A person with type 2 diabetes still produces insulin but the body doesn't respond to it normally. Glucose is less able to enter the cells and do its job of supplying energy (a problem called insulin resistance ). This raises the blood sugar level, so the pancreas works hard to make even more insulin. Eventually, this strain can make the pancreas unable to produce enough insulin to keep blood sugar levels normal. People with insulin resistance may or may not develop type 2 diabetes it all depends on whether the pancreas can make enough insulin to keep b Continue reading >>
When Your Teen Just Quits: Diabetes And The Teenage Years
When Your Teen Just Quits: Diabetes and the Teenage Years The teenage years are a time of physical, mental, and emotional growth. Like all times of transition and change, the going can get rough at times. For teens with diabetes , diabetes and its care can be one of the rough spots. Just as the changes happening in their bodies make maintaining blood glucose control more challenging, teens are often expected to take more responsibility for managing their diabetes. At the same time, the increasing demands of school, the possibility of holding a job, and the opportunities for a wider social life can make diabetes care seem relatively unimportant in the teenage mind. With all of these competing demands and pressures, some teens quit taking care of themselves. When this happens, what is a parent to do? Understanding the global issues facing teenagers, as well as those particular to the teen in question, will help to address the problem. Heres what happened to two teenagers as they hit their mid- to late teens. Jessica is 15 and has had diabetes for 9 years. When she was much younger, her parents monitored her blood glucose levels, recorded the numbers, measured and supervised her food intake, and made frequent adjustments to her insulin doses. Her blood glucose levels were reasonable, and her HbA1c test results were usually under 8.0%. (The American Diabetes Association recommended goal for HbA1c, a measure of blood glucose control, is less than 7% for most people with diabetes.) Jessica never had a severe hypoglycemic episode that required treatment with glucagon (a hormone that raises blood glucose levels and that must be injected), and she only ever had ketones in her blood or urine when she was sick. (Ketones are acidic by-products of fat metabolism. Their appearance i Continue reading >>
Diabetes
Diabetes is a chronic (long-term) condition that occurs when your body doesn’t make enough insulin, or when your body has trouble using the insulin that it does make. About 1 in 400 young people have this condition. What is insulin? Why is it important? Insulin is a hormone made by a gland called the pancreas. The pancreas is located behind the stomach. Whenever you eat food, your body digests the food (breaks it down) into smaller parts: vitamins, minerals, sugar (called “glucose”), fat, and protein. Your body then uses glucose for energy. Glucose is the body’s major source of energy. Insulin is the hormone that helps glucose enter the cells of your body so it can be used as energy. If your body doesn’t make enough insulin, or if your body has difficulty using the insulin that it makes, the glucose from your food does not get changed into energy. Instead, the glucose stays in your blood, causing your blood glucose (also called “blood sugar”) to rise. Why is high blood sugar a problem? High blood sugar is a problem because it can cause serious damage to the body. Some of the most serious, long term problems are loss of vision, kidney problems, heart problems, damage to circulation and stroke. This kind of damage happens slowly over many years and can be delayed or prevented if you take good care of your diabetes. There are also short-term problems that come from high blood sugar. Some common short term-problems (caused from high blood sugar) are: Being thirsty Having to urinate (pee) more often Feeling irritable or exhausted Weight loss If your blood sugar gets too high due to not having enough insulin, you can experience a very serious condition called diabetic ketoacidosis. Signs of ketoacidosis are: Rapid deep breathing Stomach pain or chest pain and/or Continue reading >>
- American Diabetes Association® Releases 2018 Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes, with Notable New Recommendations for People with Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes
- Leeds diabetes clinical champion raises awareness of gestational diabetes for World Diabetes Day
- Diabetes doctors: Which specialists treat diabetes?
What Is Diabetes?
Diabetes is a disease that occurs when your blood glucose, also called blood sugar, is too high. Blood glucose is your main source of energy and comes from the food you eat. Insulin, a hormone made by the pancreas, helps glucose from food get into your cells to be used for energy. Sometimes your body doesn’t make enough—or any—insulin or doesn’t use insulin well. Glucose then stays in your blood and doesn’t reach your cells. Over time, having too much glucose in your blood can cause health problems. Although diabetes has no cure, you can take steps to manage your diabetes and stay healthy. Sometimes people call diabetes “a touch of sugar” or “borderline diabetes.” These terms suggest that someone doesn’t really have diabetes or has a less serious case, but every case of diabetes is serious. What are the different types of diabetes? The most common types of diabetes are type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes. Type 1 diabetes If you have type 1 diabetes, your body does not make insulin. Your immune system attacks and destroys the cells in your pancreas that make insulin. Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in children and young adults, although it can appear at any age. People with type 1 diabetes need to take insulin every day to stay alive. Type 2 diabetes If you have type 2 diabetes, your body does not make or use insulin well. You can develop type 2 diabetes at any age, even during childhood. However, this type of diabetes occurs most often in middle-aged and older people. Type 2 is the most common type of diabetes. Gestational diabetes Gestational diabetes develops in some women when they are pregnant. Most of the time, this type of diabetes goes away after the baby is born. However, if you’ve had gestational diabetes, you have a greater chan Continue reading >>
- American Diabetes Association® Releases 2018 Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes, with Notable New Recommendations for People with Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes
- Leeds diabetes clinical champion raises awareness of gestational diabetes for World Diabetes Day
- Diabetes doctors: Which specialists treat diabetes?
Diabetes Seems To Be Climbing Quickly In U.s. Teens
Two years ago, a major survey by researchers with the Colorado School of Public Health in Aurora reported that as of 2001, 0.34 percent of teenagers had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. It made that calculation after reviewing data on 1.7 million kids 12 to 19 years old. All had been seen by doctors in Colorado, California, Ohio, South Dakota and Washington state. A new study reviewed data representative of children across the entire United States. It finds that more than twice as many adolescents as in the earlier study — 0.8 percent — now have diabetes. “To our knowledge, these are the first estimates of diabetes in a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents” using the best available markers of disease, the new study notes. These include three different measures of current and past blood-sugar levels in the body. The new estimates of teen diabetes rates also are higher than ever reported. The findings appear in the July 19 issue of JAMA. Diabetes is known as a metabolic disease. That means it affects how the body processes energy — what most people think of as food. The body uses many different processes to digest what it eats and drinks, turning food and drink into simple sugars. Cells can use that sugar to stay warm, to fuel their activities and to build new tissues. But in diabetes, especially the type-2 form, the body has trouble using that sugar. A hormone known as insulin is supposed to bring sugar into cells. But insulin cannot work effectively in diabetes. It ends up leaving too much sugar in the bloodstream, where it can ultimately damage tissues. In type 1 diabetes, the body does not make enough insulin, leading to the same problem. A half-century ago, the type-2 form of this disease seldom showed up in people under 40 to 60 years o Continue reading >>
Parenting Your Teen With Type 1 Diabetes
By Nicole Kofman and Ashley Dartnell Twitter summary: Teenagers + type 1 diabetes = a challenge! Tips from #CWDFFL15 & a parent For most families, “‘adolescence is second only to infancy’ in terms of the upheaval it generates” within a household. Add managing type 1 diabetes into the mix, and things can get complicated. For parents, it can be daunting to balance giving teens space to grow and monitoring a 24/7 condition as dangerous as type 1 diabetes. At CWD’s Friends For Life conference in July, Dr. Jill Weissberg-Benchell and CDEs Natalie Bellini and Marissa Town led a workshop called “Parenting Your Teen with Type 1.” There, they elicited an impressive list of diabetes-specific concerns that parents have regarding their teens, including but not limited to: How can they have the peace of mind of knowing their child is reasonably within range without being a helicopter parent? What will happen when their teen begins to drive and could have a low? How do growth hormones interact with insulin and affect blood sugar? How will alcohol affect diabetes management? What additional steps do people with type 1 diabetes need to take to be prepared for college entrance exams? All that – on top of keeping up with schoolwork and extracurricular activities! We learned some great tips from the experts and parents at this workshop. Plus, we sat down with Ashley Dartnell, a parent of one of diaTribe’s summer associates who has type 1 diabetes, to learn more about her personal experience parenting a teen with type 1 and to gain a unique perspective outside of what we learned from the Friends for Life workshop. Our top five actionable tips for caring for a teen with diabetes 1. Numbers are not a scoreboard. As the all-star team of facilitators shared at the FFL worksho Continue reading >>
In Teens, Diabetes Takes A More Dangerous Course
THURSDAY, May 23, 2013 – A growing number of overweight teens are developing type 2 diabetes before they graduate from high school or learn how to drive, and new research paints an increasingly dismal picture for their future. The disease progresses more quickly in youth than adults, and children with type 2 diabetes rapidly develop signs of complications such as heart and kidney disease, according to a series of studies from the Treatment Options for Type 2 Diabetes in Adolescents and Youth (TODAY) trial published today in a special issue of the journal Diabetes Care. These findings are especially concerning because the teens in the study had poor outcomes despite receiving optimal care and close monitoring from a team of diabetes experts. “Type 2 diabetes, when it occurs in youth, is a very, very, very rapidly progressing and serious disease — far worse than in the more typical 50-, 60-, or 70-year-old person who develops diabetes,” said Kenneth Copeland, MD, director of the children’s program at the Harold Hamm Diabetes Center at the University of Oklahoma and the national co-chair of the TODAY study. “It is extremely difficult to treat with any of the modalities we have available to us right now, and it progresses relentlessly towards complications regardless of the form of treatment that we offer them.” Compounding the problem is the fact that only two type 2 diabetes medications are approved for use in children. Physicians have limited options to help young people keep their blood sugar under control and minimize the risk for health problems down the road. About 3,700 people under age 20 are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in the U.S. each year. While that figure is small compared to the incidence in adults, the number of children living with the dise Continue reading >>
Diabetes In Children And Teens: Signs And Symptoms
With more than a third of diabetes cases in the United States occurring in people over the age of 65, diabetes is often referred to as an age-related condition. But around 208,000 children and adolescents are estimated to have diabetes, and this number is increasing. Type 1 diabetes is the most common form of the condition among children and adolescents. A 2009 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed that type 1 diabetes prevalence stands at 1.93 in every 1,000 children and adolescents, while type 2 diabetes affects 0.24 in every 1,000. In 2014, Medical News Today reported that, based on a study published in JAMA, rates of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes have increased significantly among American children and teenagers. The study found that incidence of type 1 diabetes in children aged up to 9 years increased by 21 percent between 2001 and 2009, while incidence of type 2 diabetes among youths aged 10-19 years rose by 30.5 percent. The researchers note: "The increases in prevalence reported herein are important because such youth with diabetes will enter adulthood with several years of disease duration, difficulty in treatment, an increased risk of early complications and increased frequency of diabetes during reproductive years, which may further increase diabetes in the next generation." Contents of this article: Here are some key points about diabetes in children. More detail and supporting information is in the main article. Type 1 and 2 diabetes are both increasing in the youth of America Often, the symptoms of type 1 diabetes in children develop over just a few weeks If type 1 diabetes is not spotted, the child can develop diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) What is diabetes in children? Type 1 diabetes in children, previously called juve Continue reading >>
