Four diabetes warning signs you should know
Today we're talking about a disease that everyone knows from hearsay - but certainly not everyone would recognise in their own child: Type 1 diabetes mellitus, also known as diabetes. There are four warning signs of this disease that you should be aware of.
Diabetes does not only occur in older people and adults, but unfortunately there is also diabetes that manifests itself very early in life: Type 1 diabetes in children. My youngest patient in the practice was 18 months old, it usually affects children of primary school age and the incidence is 2:10,000.
It is very important to recognise diabetes early. If it is not recognised early, there is a phase right at the beginning of the disease called ketoacidosis, which can become downright life-threatening if the child's problem is not recognised. This is why the Paediatric Diabetology Working Group is currently running a major awareness campaign to make parents aware of the signs they should look out for.
There are four classic signs:
significantly increased thirst
significantly increased urination
Weight loss without a recognisable cause
noticeable tiredness, increased fatigue
From practical experience, I have to say that the last point in particular is reliable and can actually always be recognised. And it should also be the quickest way to ensure that you contact your paediatrician. Parents then typically tell you that, for example, the journey to nursery school, which was actually easy for the child to manage in one go, is suddenly so strenuous that breaks are necessary. Or that the child has to rest after just a few minutes at gymnastics because their legs hurt.
These are things that you should take seriously and clarify at the paediatrician's practice.
Weight loss is also something that should not really occur in childhood, at least not a significant one that cannot be explained in any other way. A child can quickly lose a kilo or a kilo and a half due to a gastrointestinal infection, but if a child eats normally and appears normal and still loses weight - then this needs to be clarified.
The points about drinking a lot and going to the toilet a lot are of course also correct, but this is really not so easy in everyday life. Because there are also children who simply like to drink a lot without it being immediately pathological. In the same way, there are children who are sometimes just a little nervous and go to the toilet a lot. This doesn't have to be pathological either.
That is why it is primarily important to pay attention to changes, i.e. whether the child shows a clear change in behaviour. If so, please consult us. With a urine test and a prick in the finger, the matter can be investigated relatively quickly.
As I said, the probability of diabetes in children is not very high - but you should pay attention to the four characteristics so that you can react correctly and quickly if the worst comes to the worst.
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