How Long Does It Take To Develop Type 1 Symptoms
The symptoms of type 1 diabetes in children and young adults tend to develop quickly over a few weeks or few days.
Type 1 diabetes is a dangerous condition if it is left untreated for too long. It is therefore important to seek a diagnosis from your doctor if you or your child is showing the symptoms of type 1 diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes can develop at any age. Adults may develop a specific form of type 1 diabetes known as LADA
LADA tends to develop more slowly than type 1 diabetes in children and young adults and people with LADA may sometimes be misdiagnosed as having type 2 diabetes.
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When To Contact A Medical Professional
- Chest pain or pressure, shortness of breath, or other signs of angina
- Loss of consciousness
Contact your provider or go to the emergency room if you have symptoms of diabetic ketoacidosis.
Also contact your provider if you have:
- Blood sugar levels that are higher than the goals you and your provider have set
- Numbness, tingling, or pain in your feet or legs
- Problems with your eyesight
- Sores or infections on your feet
- Frequent feelings of depression or anxiety
- Symptoms that your blood sugar is getting too low
- Symptoms that your blood sugar is too high
- Blood sugar readings that are below 70 mg/dL
You can treat early signs of hypoglycemia at home by drinking orange juice, eating sugar or candy, or by taking glucose tablets. If signs of hypoglycemia continue or your blood glucose level stays below 60 mg/dL , go to the emergency room.
What Problems Can Happen With Type 1 Diabetes
Not having the right amount of sugar in the blood can lead to:
- hyperglycemia: This is when blood sugars are too high. Kids with hyperglycemia may be extra thirsty, pee more than usual, and lose weight. High blood sugars can be treated. If they arent, kids can develop health issues later in life.
- diabetic ketoacidosis : This serious condition needs treatment right away. When theres not enough insulin in the body to let the glucose into the cells, the body starts to break down fat instead of sugar. Symptoms of DKA can include nausea, vomiting, belly pain, fast breathing, and, in severe cases, unconsciousness.
- hypoglycemia: This is when blood sugars are too low and can sometime happen when people are being treated for diabetes. Symptoms can include headache, weakness, shakiness, anxiety, and sweating.
- growth and development problems: Some kids might grow slower than their peers or start puberty later than usual.
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High And Low Blood Sugar
Blood sugar levels change often during the day. Youll need to notice if your blood sugar drops too low and be prepared to treat it right away.
If your blood sugar spikes very high and your insulin is low, you can develop diabetic ketoacidosis , a serious complication of diabetes that can be life-threatening. Youll need medical care immediately if you develop DKA.
Your health care team will let you know how to identify and treat high and low blood sugar and related health problems. Be sure to get in touch with your doctor or diabetes educator if you have any questions.
How Do I Take Care Of My Child Who Has Type 1 Diabetes
When your child is first diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, it can be overwhelming. Theres a lot to learn, and youll need to get up to speed quickly on how to manage Type 1 diabetes and incorporate lifestyle changes at home. Caregivers often manage Type 1 diabetes for their children, especially if theyre young.
Some things youll need to do include:
- Learn to count carbohydrates, which may involve adapting your familys diet.
- Learn about how insulin works and how to give shots or use an insulin pump.
- Learn to check your childs blood sugar and interpret the results.
- Understand how different foods, exercise and illnesses affect blood sugar levels.
- Manage rivalries and feelings of jealousy between your children , which is common when theres a Type 1 diabetes diagnosis in a family.
- Support your childs mental and emotional health and reach out for professional help if needed. They may suddenly feel very overwhelmed with whats happening or feel that theyre different from their peers.
- Help your child learn how to listen to their body for symptoms of high and low blood sugar and how to manage Type 1 diabetes on their own .
- Educate friends, family, school administrators and others about Type 1 diabetes and your childs management needs and what they can do to help. Its important to reach out for help because while you can do a lot for your child, you cant do it all.
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Assessment Of Intelligence And Cognitive Ability
The cognitive test battery was selected on the basis of previous observations , weighted toward the assessment of current intellectual performance and information processing, and designed to be sensitive to mild-to-moderate cognitive changes. The assessment was not all-encompassing frontal and executive functions were not assessed in depth, and memory and learning ability were not evaluated. Trained assessors blinded to participants diabetes characteristics administered the tests in a standardized manner. Assessment was rescheduled if antecedent hypoglycemia episode occurred within the preceding 24 h. The tests used were as follows:
Type 1 Diabetes Resources We Love
As mentioned, type 1 diabetes is a lifelong disease that requires active management throughout the day, every day. This reality can be daunting for someone who has just received a diagnosis. Dutta advises that you find out as much as you can, and dont be afraid to speak up or seek help. Learn about the disease. Knowledge is power, he says.
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Why Are Diabetes Types Controversial
First, a bit of history. Way back when, there was diabetes mellitus. This came from the Greek word diabetes meaning siphon, to pass through, and the Latin word mellitus, meaning honeyed or sweet. That eventually changed to Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus and Non-IDDM or . These pretty much came with distinctions of juvenile diabetes that required insulin once diagnosed, and adult diabetes being seen as the type that did not.
Then in 1979, there was a whole renaming effort by a panel of experts, and the terms were replaced with our modern type 1 and type 2 designations. Gestational diabetes was thrown in to describe a sometimes temporary type of diabetes diagnosed during pregnancy, and the experts thought they had all the bases covered.
But then a problem arose.
Some people who developed the autoimmune T1D, especially as adults, were different. The disease didnt follow the normal rules most in the medical community had come to know. In particular, adults with this slow-motion T1D could go for many months, sometimes years, before insulin had to be started. So eventually in the mid-1980s, the research community coined the term LADA.
So how is this even a thing? Why is the term still used, and how is it defined?
In fact, the only professional diabetes organization that officially recognizes LADA is the Immunology of Diabetes Society, which proposes a definition that boils down to:
Proven Coaching For All Types Of Diabetes
A diabetes diagnosis at any age can be a heavy weight on your shoulders, but the most important thing to know is that all forms of diabetes can be effectively managed with evidence-based lifestyle changes.
Still, we know that these can be easier said than done, which is why we offer an comprehensive coaching program and a supportive community to help you master diabetes and stay healthy for the decades to come.
Still, we know that these can be easier said than done, which is why we offer a comprehensive coaching program and a supportive community to help you master diabetes and stay healthy for the decades to come.
Working together, weve already seen hundreds of members of our community take control of their type 1 diabetes, like:
- Charlotte, who couldnt seem to figure out her diet no matter how hard she tried
- Jason, who suffered from diabetic nerve pain
- Sanna, who reversed stage 3 kidney disease
- Chris, who reversed 57 years of diabetes complications
- Affaf, who got control of her life after years feeling out of control
- Lindsay, who transformed her life with a plant-based diet
- Meghan, who mastered the low-fat, plant-based, whole-food diet
- Jessica, who switched from a high-fat diet and saw immediate results
We founded Mastering Diabetes to help share our own experience living with diabetes, and help guide others with evidence-based research to master diabetes themselves. We hope we can help you too!
Stop Guessing What to Eat
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What Are The Treatments For Type 1 Diabetes
Type 1 diabetes must be treated with . To do this, a person with type 1 diabetes must inject insulin under their skin where it can be absorbed into their bloodstream to help glucose access the cells that require it. Insulin cant be taken in pill form because the digestive juices in the stomach would destroy the insulin before it could work.
Treating T1D is all about the amount and timing of insulin, as well as the best way to get the right dose of this essential hormone to assure that the glucose circulating in your blood is able to be properly absorbed by your body. Having too much glucose in your body can cause serious complications as can having too little glucose in your blood .
Insulin can be delivered by:
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Injections with a syringe
All of these methods deliver insulin subcutaneouslyusually in the fatty area of the abdomenbut each has different advantages and drawbacks. Someone using a syringe to inject insulin might prefer the ease that comes with a quick draw and delivery, rather than learning how to use a pump, which can be cumbersome, expensive, and sometimes confusing to learn .
A pen is similar to a syringe injection except that the insulin is prefilled in cartridges, so users only need to load an insulin cartridge into the pen and administer it when needed, no measuring required. In addition to insulin, other medications, such as metformin, are also used to help reduce risk and manage type 1 diabetes.
How Is Type 1 Diabetes Diagnosed
Because the symptoms can develop rapidly, a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes is usually made by a pediatrician or a physician in the emergency room. Pediatricians might check a childs glucose levels if there is unexplained weight loss or sudden bedwetting. Glucose tests are also commonly run when a person with type 1 diabetes symptoms arrives at the hospital.
Doctors can also diagnose type 1 diabetes by running several tests to check blood-sugar levels. The primary screening test for type 1 diabetes is the random blood-sugar test, which tells physicians the amount of glucose circulating in a persons blood at a specific moment in time. A blood-sugar level of 200 milligrams per deciliter suggests diabetes.
The secondary test is a glycated hemoglobin test, or A1C test. This test measures the average amount of glucose in a persons bloodstream over the past 90 days as a percentage.
A normal A1C level is between 5 and 5.5%, while anything higher than 5.7% indicates diabetes. When diabetes is controlled, a persons A1C levels will be low.
Its a useful test because you dont want to overreact, says Dr. Christofides. If someone has for a week or a couple days, their A1C isnt going to rise. This gives us a good reflection of what the glucose level was for the past three months.
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Genetics And Type 1 Diabetes
Genetics are likely a risk factor of type 1 diabetes, but the research is currently unclear on exactly how a family history corresponds to type 1 diabetes risk.
According to the NIH, A predisposition to develop type 1 diabetes is passed through generations in families, but the inheritance pattern is unknown.
Cognitive Ability And Eod
The early childhood development of type 1 diabetes was associated with lower nonverbal intelligence ability and slower psychomotor speed in adulthood, independent of other factors that influenced cognitive performance. The specific cognitive abilities affected were consistent with those previously observed, although varied EOD definitions hinder direct comparisons: lower nonverbal intelligence scores and slower information processing have been reported, although not consistently . Other abilities examined in the present study were not significantly influenced by diabetes onset age. Differences in attention and executive function have been previously associated with early childhood diabetes onset . Discrepancies may reflect study and control group heterogeneity, sample size, the varied psychometric instruments used to detect performance differences, and diverse definitions of EOD.
The NART reliably estimates maximum adult intellectual attainment when intellectual development occurs in the absence of childhood pathology . NART scores are relatively resistant to organic brain disease throughout adulthood and predict prior intellectual ability with greater accuracy than socioeconomic estimates. However, the childhood development of type 1 diabetes could theoretically interfere with neurodevelopment. Therefore, the use of the NART as a covariate in the present study may have underestimated the magnitude of detrimental cognitive effects in later life attributable to EOD.
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The Causes Of Premature Death In Type 1 Diabetes
Broadly speaking, type 1 diabetes harms your health in two ways: low blood sugar and high blood sugar.
Hypoglycemia is not generally associated with long-term health problems, but it can cause death in an instant, either directly or indirectly . Past studies have suggested that as many as 4-10 percent of patients with type 1 diabetes have died or will die of hypoglycemic episodes. We can be hopeful that the number is trending down as diabetes medicine and technology has improved newer resources, including nasal glucagon rescue and the continuous glucose monitor , with its blood sugar alarms, can be literally life-saving.
Hyperglycemia is the cause of most of the long-term complications of diabetes and is the most significant contributor to reduced life expectancy. Persistent high blood sugars, which for decades have been considered all but unavoidable, cause both microvascular damage and macrovascular damage . Either can lead to early death.
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in patients with type 1 diabetes. While many healthy adults eventually die due to cardiovascular disease heart disease is the most common cause of death in the United States people with type 1 diabetes usually experience heart disease about one decade earlier.
High blood sugar can also cause rapid death. Diabetic ketoacidosis, caused by an acute lack of insulin, can be fatal.
What Causes Type 1 Diabetes
Type 1 diabetes causes can be any kind of illness, including the common cold. That said, here are the most common causes:
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Viral infection. Researchers believe that type 1 diabetes can be triggered by a virus, such as the common flu or cold. Frequently, type 1 diabetes comes on in the weeks following a viral infection, such as mumps, rubella, cytomegalovirus, measles, influenza, encephalitis, polio, or Epstein-Barr.
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Injury to or removal of the pancreas. Very rarely, type 1 diabetes can be triggered by an injury or trauma to the pancreas. Whenever the pancreas is surgically removed, the body also loses the ability to produce insulin, which then causes type
These are some common causes of Type 1 Diabetes.
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How Type 1 Diabetes Raises Blood Sugar
In the normal digestive process, your body breaks down much of the food you eat into glucose, a simple sugar that’s stored in your body and used for energy. The hormoneinsulin, produced by the pancreas, regulates the amount of glucose in your blood by helping liver, muscle, and fat cells absorb the sugar, as the American Diabetes Association explains.
With type 1 diabetes, the bodys immune system attacks and destroys the pancreass insulin-producing beta cells. Without that hormone, blood sugar rises too high, causing hyperglycemia.
We dont know exactly what triggers this autoimmune process to start, says Charles Scott Thomas, MD, an endocrinologist at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center in Los Angeles. There is likely a genetic component that places patients at risk, with some environmental influences as well.
People who have type 1 diabetes must replace insulin every day through injections and monitor their blood glucose throughout the day.
Having Your Blood Glucose Levels Checked
You’ll be measuring your blood glucose yourself every day, to check your levels.
Your GP or diabetes care team will also carry out a different blood test every two to six months, called the HbA1c test.
This gives a clearer idea of how well your treatment plan is working, by measuring how stable your glucose levels have been over the past 6-12 weeks.
It measures the amount of haemoglobin, which is the oxygen-carrying substance in red blood cells that has glucose attached to it. A high HbA1c level may indicate that your blood glucose level is consistently high and that your diabetes treatment plan needs to be altered.
The ideal HbA1c target for people with diabetes is below 53 mmol/mol.
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Financial Support And Benefits
Some people with diabetes may be eligible to receive disability benefits and incapacity benefits, depending on the impact the condition has on their life.
The main groups likely to qualify for welfare benefits are children, elderly people, people with learning disabilities or mental health problems, and those with complications of diabetes.
People over 65 who are severely disabled, may qualify for a type of disability benefit called Attendance Allowance.
Carers may also be entitled to some benefit too, depending on their involvement in caring for the person with diabetes.
Staff at your local Citizens Advice Bureau can check whether you’re getting all of the benefits you’re entitled to. Both they and your diabetes specialist nurse should also be able to give you advice about filling in the forms.
GOV.uk has more information about benefits, and the Diabetes UK website has further advice about the Disability Living Allowance .