Type 1 diabetes mellitus is the most frequent in childhood, so the children who suffer from it must know their illness, receiving the 'diabetological education' from the endocrinologist pediatrician, the nurse specialized in auxiliary and dentist child diabetes.
"Once the child is diagnosed and is entered for the first treatment, he cannot go home until the parents and the child himself, if his age permits it, approve with note the subject of 'diabetologist education," said theChief of the Pediatric Endocrinology Service of the HM Montepríncipe University Hospital, Dr. Amparo Rodríguez Sánchez.
After the diagnosis of the disease, children require hospital admission and there they receive an adequate intravenous contribution of insulin and fluids.Once this phase is overcome, it is passed to chronic treatment that is based on three pillars: normocaloric, healthy food, rationed in carbohydrates and adapted as far as possible to the child's preferences, subcutaneous insulin, which can be administered through daily injectionso Continuous infusion bomb, and physical exercise, which must be regular, progressive and adapted to your age and hobbies.
To all this we must add daily the performing of multiple capillary blood glucose controls, which allow to adapt the treatment at all times.This disease treatment allows the child to lead a normal life in all aspects.In the long term, in addition, good control will avoid the appearance of complications such as ophthalmopathy, nephropathy, neuropathy or atherosclerotic disease.
Type 1a diabetes mellitus (DM1A), also known as youth or insulin -dependent diabetes, is an autoimmune disease that is characterized by absolute insulin deficiency.The reason is the destruction of the beta cells of the pancreas, responsible for synthesizing and segregating this hormone whose function is to control blood glucose levels.Unlike type 2 diabetes, this is more frequent in childhood and cannot be prevented.
Dr. Rodríguez Sánchez explained that "the incidence of DM1A varies according to the geographical area, age, sex and family history."In addition, he adds, there is an environmental factors that in people presenting a certain genetic susceptibility can act as triggers or protectors of the disease.
How to detect it?
As for the symptoms, the doctor distinguishes between two, those that appear initially and are of an nonspecific nature such as weight loss, alteration of character, asthenia and low school performance, and others more specific that may appear in a matter of days or weeks likePolidipsia (thirst), polyuria (increased quantity and frequency of urination), enuresis (urinating in bed) and polyphia (increased appetite).
"The diagnosis is simple, it is enough to perform a blood or urine analysis to determine the level of blood glucose (blood sugar) or the presence of glucosuria (urine sugar)," explained the expert.If any of these symptoms appear, it is important that parents go to the doctor, since "if the disease progresses without treatment, in a few days the child can become very serious with vomiting, dehydration and even coma. It is what we know as ketoacidosisDiabetics, a serious and potentially deadly picture, "the expert concluded.