Diabetes

My child has diabetes.
 To find out that your child has
got diabetes 1 is quite a chock. And the next chock comes
when you learn how little people now about it. And how many
myths there are about children and diabetes.
This page bring up some of the myths and problems, and
also gíve you some links and graphics regarding diabetes.
This page is NOT an Medical site with professional
writings. Just a parents experiense.

What is diabetes?
Type 1 diabetes is caused by an autoimmune disorder-a problem
with the body's immune system.^In a healthy body, specialized cells
 (called beta cells) in the pancreas make insulin. Insulin is a hormone
that allows the body to use energy from food. In type 1 diabetes,
 the immune system mistakes beta cells for invaders and attacks them.
When enough beta cells are destroyed, symptoms of diabetes appear.

    

Problems.
One problem we run in to rather quick, was
that people are afraid to give my daughter Lovisa sugar
of any kind. We often have to explain that the direkt danger
is not that she get to much sugar, but that she is not getting enought.
Especially summertime when the children run around a lot, and
wintertime, when they play in the snow. A lot of sugar is
needed those times.

Another problem are when people  think they know, and
dont ask anything. Those people have often heard about
diabetes, but dont know anything that is important to know
when they having a child with diabetes around. This is aslo
very dangerous.

For Lovisa who is just 8 years old, the problems are of a
whole different kind. For her the tuffest part is to
interrupt the game and play with her friends, to
test her glucose, take her injektion, or eat. But we use to
solv that problem at our home, through "between-meal"
for the whole gang of children playing at our yard.
Then everyone can sit down for a bit, and have something to eat.



Myths
There are a lot of myths regarding childrens diabetes.
Here are some of them, that we and our friends have bumped in to.

Diabetes on children dissapear when they grow up   -  no it will not dissapear.

If your child have got diabetes, its because she have been eating to much sugar - no,
you don´t get diabetes 1 from eating sugar. You get it because of an autoimmune disorder.

A child who have diabetes cant eat sweets at all - wrong. She can, its just have to be a little
better planed, together with her dinner.

If the glucose value jump up and down, you have done something wrong. - Wrong. Even if
you have the proper doses and insulinsort, and you have done what you can, your childs glucose
value can still jump up and down. Some children are hard to hold an a level of 5-7 mmol.

Positiv things
Yes, there are positiv things in all this.
We have noticed that other parents are a lot more considerat,
than we ever thought when Lovisa first got sick. They ask a lot,
what to do, and what to give her, when she is at their house playing.
And before birthdaypartys, that Lovisa is invited to, they often phone
us, asking how to plan the party to suit Lovisa. It feel really fine.

Lovisa and her brother get to eat sweetes at more times than
they have ever done before, when Lovisas glucose value is low.

The whole family had to take a serious look at our eatinghabbits.
And now we are eating a lot better food, on a lot better times on the day.



I hope you read something of value, and maby learned something
you did not know. If you to have a kid with diabetes, you are
welcome to mail me. Or maby you kid whant to mail Lovisa.

Take a look at the graphics I have adopted, and
the one I have done myself. Mine, you can adopt,
and the other ones have a link to were I found them.

Have a lovley day