Type 2 and more...

[rbergman]

In April of 2007 our daughter was 6yrs old and began gaining significant weight, her 7th birthday came and went in July 2007 and the weight gain continued, I had the hardest time trying to find a doctor that would help me other than to tell me it was a growth spurt, she was 56lbs in April 2007 and 88lbs by her birthday in July! Finally in August I found a doctor that agreed it was not normal and she ordered a series of blood tests. On August 30th we found out that her thyroid wasn't working properly and by that time she was at 111 lbs. Long story short we lived in western Nebraska at the time and was sent to see a specialist in Denver Colorado. They put her on medication after running several tests themselves and decided that her auto-immune system had gone into failure causing her body to produce anitbodies that attack normal functioning organs and destroys them. We went back to Denver 6wks after the initial appt. to see if the medication level was working and it was, but they saw signs and symptoms of type 1 diabetes ( I should tell you that I am a 5th generation Type 2 diabetic and have had it for nearly 8yrs myself) anyway, they did an A1C and sent us home. Later the results showed no indication of diabetes.  I took it upon myself to do finger prick b/s checks on her randomly after that just to ease my own mind and our family physician thought it was a good idea as well. She developed severe allergies and was put on 2 medications to try to control that, she was given the flu shot and the pneumonia shot to try and prevent both of those due to her auto-immune failure. Well, come mid November she was showing higher and higher b/s results, anywhere from 180-290 fasting. So, I called the doctor, they did another A1C it came back as high normal of 6.9. Since she was due to go back to Denver in Jan of 2009 they suggested to have it repeated again then. Well that date has now come and gone and she was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes with Type 1 more than likely coming soon.  There is no cure for auto-immune failure and most times it stops after affecting only 1 or 2 organs or functions, they do not know why with her more and more medical issues keep coming and have run every test imaginable with no answers as to the cause of her immune failure.
Because of the thyroid medication she is not allowed soy products of any kind for at least 1 hour after taking the pill in the morning, and no vitamins or minerals or such for a minimum of 4 hours after taking it.  They have also scheduled her this coming week for an allergy test to see what she is actually allergic to, and now with the diabetes diagnosis we have to rethink her entire diet. Granted I'm diabetic so that won't be too big of a change meal planning wise but for a 7yr old its difficult.  She has to have a low carb (300 max daily) and low calorie (1500 max daily) diet.  I also need to figure out if the school provides for diabetic children or if I will need to pack her a lunch daily as well.  The reason, you may wonder, of why I post here on this site, well, there wasn't a place for me to do such a thing until she was diagnosed with diabetes, I haven't located a site for any of her other conditions so I am really glad that you all are here, even though I'm diabetic its so much harder when its your child.