Sickness and diabetes

In the two years of learning about diabetes to help my son Jaxon through diabetes. I have learnt that sicknesses can mess with sugar levels whether it will go high or low. Just recently Jaxon ended up getting sick without me knowing he was sick until his sugars kept rising and no matter how many corrections I had given him he wouldn’t come down. I then changed his insulin pump lines and still couldn’t bring it down so because his sugars are high his ketones went up to 3.7 overnight. Jaxon then got up in the night vomiting and urinating more because of the high sugars and high ketones. I then had to take him to the hospital for them to help me they then had to put in a temporary basal and increase his insulin rate at the time as he continues to go up even without food. We spent all day at the hospital trying to help this beautiful 4-year-old boy. Jaxon was then needed to be persuaded to drink as he was scared it was going to come back out of his mouth (his words).

It started like this

On Monday- Jaxon went to swimming lessons had fun and then his insulin pump cannula tape which has allergies to started to come off, I fixed it and made sure the cannula was still in his skin. After swimming lessons, we then went to Preschool orientation so Jaxon could start preschool and get ready for kindergarten. He was so excited about this and calls preschool big school.

On Tuesday- Jaxon and I went and did a grocery shop had some breakfast and then chilled out together he started to have high sugars so I gave a correction it came down briefly and went back up.

On Wednesday- Jaxon and I had some breakfast but before he ate I checked his sugars he was slightly high I gave insulin for what he was eating plus a correction We then went for a walk as we have started walking dogs through Woofly (Woofly is a great app to use to either walk dogs or to ask someone locally to walk your beautiful pup), We started this to get Jaxon ready for when he gets his service dog. On that walk Jaxon started to have very high sugars his sugars went up to 29.5 I gave him a correction of 1.5 and it still didn’t come down much. I then contacted his diabetes educators for some help they suggested for me to change his insulin pump line, Once I did this I then gave another correction and then kept checking his sugars which stayed fairly high.

On Thursday - Jaxon woke early hours of the morning, Jaxon woke up with sugars at 22.6 I then checked his ketones which were high too at 3.7 (ketones should be at 0) Jaxon then started vomiting and urinating quite a bit I then took him to the hospital at 6 am he stayed very high even without breakfast. The doctors and nurses kept checking his sugars and the diabetes team came down and helped us by putting in a temp basal to help bring down his sugars and ketones. His ketones took all day to come down we left the hospital at 7.30pm once we started walking to the car his sugars started to come back up.

On Friday- They started to be ok but more like a rollercoaster which I could expect after him being so high all week. We stayed in touch with his diabetes educator throughout the day, they mentioned that they could see by the data from his pump that Jaxon was unwell with some kind of virus.

Illness can effect sugar levels

Many illnesses can affect diabetics sugar levels, for example, a stomach big can make them go low but then with high ketones especially if they are vomiting and having diarrhea.

Although I am still learning how to care for diabetes especially how Jaxon is the only diabetic in the family but im willing to do anything to help care for Jaxon and his diabetes. I have learned that I am scared of Jaxon getting sick because never know what could happen.

Allergies

Jaxon has suffered from allergies to Adhesive for a long time. Jaxon won keep his CGM on and im sure his so frustrated with keeping it on or having it on due to how sore his skin gets when it's on. Jaxon gets blisters, rash and even his skin ripped off. I have tried everything in replacement of the tape but nothing works he still takes it off and tells me “no mum it hurts”. The rash turns into broken skin especially when he scratches at it. I then have to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't turn into an infection.

Infections and sickness is common in Type 1 diabetes.