When children have symptoms of high blood glucose levels, like frequent urination, bedwetting, and vomiting, it's usually due to type 1 diabetes. Children typically show signs of type 1 diabetes when they're very young, and it needs to be managed throughout the child's entire life. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that's caused by the immune system destroying the cells that the pancreas uses to make insulin.

Insulin is the hormone that's responsible for allowing cells to absorb glucose circulating in the bloodstream. With no insulin being produced by the pancreas, glucose will continue to build up in the blood until it causes symptoms of high blood glucose. In order to prevent this from happening, people with type 1 diabetes need to inject insulin into themselves to make up for their body's inability to produce it. This can be complicated for adults to handle, so children often struggle with monitoring blood glucose and injecting the correct amount of insulin. If your child has type 1 diabetes, it's important to find an excellent pediatric health care provider that can help them learn how to manage it. To learn three reasons why it's important to work with a provider to help manage your child's diabetes as best you can, read on.

1. Poor Management of Type 1 Diabetes Can Have Lifelong Health Consequences

The main goal of any diabetes management plan, for both children and adults, is to keep blood glucose within the normal range. Going outside of the normal range can have immediate health consequences. Taking too much insulin or not eating enough after taking the normal dose of insulin can cause blood glucose levels to drop too low, causing hypoglycemia. Severe hypoglycemia can cause someone to fall into a coma, and it can lead to death if it's not treated.

On the other hand, taking too little insulin can cause blood glucose levels to remain elevated for too long, causing hyperglycemia. When blood glucose levels are elevated for an extended period of time, it can cause diabetic ketoacidosis in someone who has type 1 diabetes. Diabetic ketoacidosis can lead to a coma, and it can also be fatal. Keeping blood glucose within normal limits helps to prevent any immediate health consequences from type 1 diabetes.

For children, however, maintaining normal blood glucose levels is even more important. That's because hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia can both negatively affect brain development. In addition, constant hyperglycemia can lead to a child developing diabetes complications at a very early age — nerve damage, retina damage, and kidney damage are all common health problems that can result from allowing blood glucose to remain constantly elevated above normal levels. Managing type 1 diabetes well helps to keep the risk of medical consequences to a minimum.

2. Your Child's Insulin Needs Change as They Age

In addition to being more important, type 1 diabetes management is also more complicated for growing children. The typical approach used in pediatric health care is called intensive insulin management, in which children take two different types of insulin. One is a basal insulin that lowers blood glucose levels throughout the entire day, and the other is a bolus insulin that acts quickly and is injected right after meals. The dosage of bolus insulin is based on how many carbohydrates a child eats during the meal, since carbohydrates have the largest effect on blood glucose levels.

As children grow older, the amount of insulin they require will change, and this applies to both basal and bolus insulin. This is another reason why pediatric health care is so important for children with type 1 diabetes — your provider will adjust the dosage based on how your child's blood glucose score is responding. If your child's blood glucose is consistently high, then the insulin dose can be increased. Frequent visits to your provider along with consistent blood glucose monitoring allow you to keep your child's blood glucose in the normal range as they grow older, helping to prevent some of the complications of diabetes that were mentioned above.

3. Good Management Now Helps Your Child Learn to Manage on Their Own as an Adult

Finally, good pediatric health care helps children learn how to manage their type 1 diabetes on their own. It's important for children to become participants in their own care, including administering their own insulin injections (under adult supervision) once they're old enough to do so. When your child grows up and becomes an adult, they'll be entirely responsible for monitoring their blood glucose and administering insulin without your help, and type 1 diabetes requires close management throughout someone's entire life. By developing the skills necessary to manage type 1 diabetes during childhood and making it a habit, you set your child up for future success managing their type 1 diabetes.

If your child has type 1 diabetes, it's important to frequently schedule appointments with a provider at a pediatric health care clinic. In addition to monitoring blood glucose control, a health care provider will also check for potential complications from type 1 diabetes, such as kidney damage and cardiovascular disease. This allows complications to be treated early, which helps to reduce their impact. With good blood glucose control and frequent visits to a pediatric health care provider, the risk of developing health issues from type 1 diabetes can be kept to a minimum. Contact a pediatric care provider to learn more.