Oh my gosh, I thought the same thing. I was saying to myself, "Did I nod off and miss something? Do I need to rewind? Why are they testing for diabetes???" It would be one thing if he wasn't sick and drinking water excessively, having a lot of wet diapers, etc. But when a kid is throwing up and running a fever, it's perfectly normal for them to increase their water intake. Sheesh. After all these kids, you'd think she'd know that. I'm beginning to see a bit of a hypochondriac in her. I actually kind of worry if she's staying home with the kids now one of them will be in the doctor's office or urgent care every week.
Sorry, I know I'm coming in late to this discussion (an understatement since this thread is like 4 years old, ha ha) but I felt the need to comment on the whole diabetes thing because not only did I have a boyfriend in high school with type 1 diabetes who also had a brother with type 1 (who did die from complications of type 1 diabetes), but years later my son ended up with type 1 as well (the high school boyfriend was not the father). I know a little something about living with "juvenile diabetes" as they are calling it on My Five Wives. And in our case, my husband was unaware of the family history of type 1, so I'm so grateful I knew the symptoms and had my boy tested, because if I hadn't, the results of that day would have been extremely different and very possibly very traumatic and devastating. Weirdly, I didn't even think he had type 1, I just thought he had a kidney infection, which is why I brought him into the doctor in the first place. In the back of my mind, of course, I realized they were symptoms of diabetes, but I just really didn't think it was... but I also knew "better safe than sorry" in this situation.
Many times a child is diagnosed either during or immediately after having been hit with a virus. Researchers think certain viruses can "activate" type 1 in a person if they are predisposed to it (they think it's genetic). Rhonda does mention diabetes runs rampant in her family. She doesn't mention if it's type 1 or type 2, which are completely different and it has always annoyed me that doctors still call them both diabetes leading people to think they are the same thing or related to each other... they are not, not at all. Type 1 is autoimmune, type 2 is not. Type 1 never, ever goes away or is cured by special diets. Type 2 can be brought under control so much so that patients can actually get off the medication completely if they are very careful with managing the condition and continue to monitor themselves even after they have been told it's gone. The only thing they both have in common is that it affects the pancreas (more specifically the islet cells in the pancreas) and has to do with how well the body produces and uses insulin, a very important hormone involved in many processes a body goes through on a daily basis, and both of them can be deadly if they aren't managed / ignored. In this case, If there was an emergency involving a child who had type 1 and wasn't diagnosed with it, and symptoms were blown off because parents told themselves "it was just a virus" and not getting the child tested for it, that child could literally die within 15 minutes or so if left untreated/undiagnosed. Rhonda was absolutely correct in testing Nik for diabetes. She keeps calling it juvenile diabetes, so I'm assuming she is saying type 1 runs in her family. Type 2 isn't referred to as juvenile diabetes because a person usually gets type 2 after the age of 40 and it is not autoimmune. Also, in type 1 the islet cells die off eventually, leaving the body with no insulin production at all, thus making the patient insulin-dependent for the rest of their lives. In type 2, it's a case of the body not using the insulin correctly, but their bodies still produce insulin, just maybe not enough.
And yes, drinking a lot of water is most definitely a symptom of type 1 diabetes. It was with my son, as well as several other symptoms. Plus, Nik had "that look" that my son also had when he got sick and ended up in PICU for a week, only moments away from a diabetic coma... tubes, IVs, monitors hooked up to every limb of his tiny one year old body.
So I just felt the need to say Rhonda definitely did not overreact to this situation. If a child has type 1, the faster they get medical treatment, the better chance of them surviving the incident. Thank goodness he was negative for type 1 (the test results probably took so long because they did what's called an A1C test, which gives doctors an overview of what the blood sugars have been for the past 3 months... I'm sure they also checked his current blood sugar as well with a meter, which literally only takes seconds to get the results, but that information alone isn't enough for a diagnosis, you need the bigger picture of the A1C to determine if this could be a case of type 1), BUT this does NOT mean he isn't diabetic for sure. These symptoms, if they keep happening, could be a sign to the parents he is indeed developing type 1. It could take quite a while for the islet cells to die off completely, which can, and has, fooled many parents into thinking their child is ok and doesn't have diabetes. After my son's diagnosis, he actually had days that he needed no insulin injections at all because not all of his islet cells had died off yet. Doctors often refer to this time period as "the honeymoon period", because the child isn't full blown diabetic... yet. As of this date, unfortunately, they still have no way of stopping the process and saving the islet cells that are still functioning, though. They are doing a lot of tests and studies and experiments and have actually *cured* type 1 diabetes in mice, they just haven't figured out how to translate that into a human cure yet.
