2-year-old Addie was rushed to the hospital with a blood sugar level 3x the norm, and diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Doctors aren’t sure how, but they believe COVID-19 had something to do with triggering the condition in her and other kids.
Two Utah families talk about what it’s been like to have their kids develop Type 1 diabetes after the coronavirus.
Then Rogers and her husband, Andrew Waibel, Addie’s dad, noticed that Addie seemed to be dropping weight. They wondered about a growth spurt, but that didn’t make sense when her princess pajamas were fitting looser than before.The Utah parents were concerned and confused. Addie had COVID-19 about a week before that, at the end of August, likely catching it at day care. But she recovered from the coughing fairly quickly. Now it was September.
In Type 1, a person’s pancreas — which regulates blood sugar — produces little or no insulin. Type 1 is generally genetic, but it’s also an autoimmune disease, Al-Hamad said. In Type 2 diabetes, generally, the pancreas also is not producing enough insulin, and the cells in the body become resistant to it.
He was unable to climb a flight of stairs without taking a break in the middle, unable to walk anywhere without an inhaler and unable to hold his daughter for any length of time. He was bedridden on a little air mattress in his office for weeks, and he continued to have symptoms for months.Rogers, also 27, went through the same blame spiral.
With diabetic ketoacidosis, kids present with vomiting and an altered mental status. And it can be fatal. The research finds that adults and children who recovered from COVID-19 have a 40% higher chance of developing diabetes than those who weren’t infected. The authors say that means, overall, that 1% of those who got the virus will be diagnosed with diabetes who otherwise wouldn’t be — that’s millions of cases worldwide. And the complication is more common in kids.
Mike and Kandra Steele started noticing the symptoms in their youngest daughter about three months after she had COVID-19. The Utah family lives in Brazil, where Mike is on a military assignment, and getting an appointment was tricky. When they got in, the staff started with a urine test, like Addie’s pediatrician had done.
The coronavirus was also pretty mild for all of them. Lisa had the sniffles for one day. After that, she seemed fine.“COVID is the only connection we can make,” Mike Steele said. “But we just don’t know. We don’t know what’s happening, and that’s so hard as a parent.” They also check Addie’s blood sugar throughout the day, and she wears a glucose monitor on her stomach. The 2-year-old calls it her “belly bot,” and they put stickers on it to dress it up — Addie usually picks princess Tiana or sometimes Belle, who reminds her of her mom.
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