Teens With Diabetes

As a teen with diabetes, I know how important it is to keep very tight control of my diabetes.  Contracting it at a young age didn't help any either.  Many teens find it hard to cope with having diabetes and its effects on their lives. I am putting up this page because of an article in Diabetes Self-Management magazine.  The more informed parents and teens are about diabetes, the better both are able to control the disease.

Teens' Responsibilities

What some teens don't realize is that diabetes doesn't just affect them now, but for the rest of their lives.  Those who already realize this, are taking more care of themselves.  Those who don't probably don't know what kinds of other diabetes-related diseases and complications that can happen at an older age.  One example that I found while on the internet is that a teen got diabetes at the age of 10.   This teen didn't care about shots, glucose monitoring or diet.  This teen, re-named George, took shots twice a day, sometimes forgot them, and was supposed to do at least 2 glucose tests a day.  Most days he didn't do any.  His mother says that on a weekly basis, he was in 'good control' when he did 6 glucose tests a week.   Other weeks, she says, like in the summer,  he is lucky to do 3 a week.   His HA1C was always between 12 and 19.  George's doctors told him about the complications of diabetes.  George celebrated his 28th birthday in February of 1999.   He is now legally blind because of diabetes-related complications and has kidney failure and is awaiting a transplant.  His wife is now his primary source of medical attention.  He is unable to do glucose tests because of the blindness, so he purchased a glucometer that 'speaks' to him to tell him what to do.  He is now doing between 4 and 9 tests a day.  George's HA1C is down to about 7.8%.

Parent's Responsibilities

What parents do when a child gets diabetes is that they do the monitoring, the shots and tell them what and what not to eat.  This is OK if the child is 8, but parent's don't realize that their teen is not 8 anymore, no matter how much they try.  When George was first diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, his mother took total control of the disease.  For the first HA1C after the diagnosis, it went from 23% to 6.8%.   When George was 11, his doctors told his mother to let him do things on his own.   This is when his diabetes went out of control.  What his mother should have done was not give him all the responsibilities all at once, this would overwhelm any teen (or pre-teen).  She should have given him the responsibility gradually, not all at once.  She could have let him do the glucose readings for a while by himself, then after he was adjusted with that, the evening shots, then after a while, all the shots.   With gradual turn over, he would have been less likely to lose control of diabetes.   Diabeteologists recommend that the teen take over, but slowly, so he/she doesn't become overwhelmed.

Web Sites On The Topic:

Teens Pumping It Up! (http://www.minimed.com/teenbk/files/tb_00.htm)

Diabetes Self Management (http://www.diabetes-self-mgmt.com/)