Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 28, 1990 TAG: 9006280401
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: GINA FEROLINO
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"It's been the single most traumatic experience of my life," she said.
Three months after Charles' condition was diagnosed, his father died. Stormont said handling the situation as a single parent has been tough.
When Melissa, 4, (whose parents wish her to remain anonymous) was diagnosed in February as having diabetes, her parents went through the usual stages of denial and disbelief that their child would become one of the statistics.
After all, there was no family history of diabetes. And Melissa seemed perfectly well, having recuperated from a virus she'd had a couple of weeks before a routine checkup that revealed the disease.
"In our case it was diagnosed almost by accident," said her mother. "We were in for a routine physical and a urinalysis showed sugar. It was shocking."
Insulin-dependent (Type I) diabetes appears suddenly in children and young adults, according to American Diabetes Association literature. The disease progresses rapidly and requires daily insulin injections, monitoring of glucose levels and dietary management.
"As much as we know about diabetes and as far as we've come, it's still not fully understood," said Martha Sparrow, a Christiansburg pediatrician. "The fundamental cause is really not known."
But there are some ideas. Viral infections may bring on the disease by attacking insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. It's also possible that the body's immune system, which fights infection, may attack the insulin-producing cells.
Diabetes affects the body's ability to convert food into energy. Glucose is formed when certain consumed foods break down. The glucose travels through the blood to the body's cells, where it's transformed into energy with the help of insulin, a type of hormone produced in the pancreas.
When the body fails to produce enough insulin or fails to use insulin effectively, the glucose can't enter the cells. Glucose builds up in the bloodstream, resulting in high blood-sugar levels. Some of this glucose may be passed through the urine.
The warning signals of the onset of diabetes include frequent urination, insatiable hunger and thirst, rapid weight loss, irritability, weakness, fatigue, nausea and vomiting.
"Once diabetes is diagnosed in a child, that child needs to be hospitalized for treatment and education because it can become so rapidly progressive," Sparrow said.
"We were lucky because we caught it before Melissa got real sick," her mother said. "She had just started getting up at night to go to the bathroom."
She was hospitalized for three days following the diagnosis. During that time, her parents were taught how to monitor glucose levels and administer insulin injections. They also were counseled on what dietary measures to take.
Regarding the injections, her mother said, "I never thought that I could stand it. But you do what you have to do."
She said technological advances such as automatic-release lancets for blood testing have made diabetes management easier.
"I guess the hardest thing has been staying on a tight schedule," said her mother.
Melissa's daily diabetes management schedule goes something like this: She gets an insulin injection at 7:30 a.m., sometimes followed by a blood test. She has breakfast at 8 a.m., a snack at 10 a.m., lunch at 12:15 p.m. (sometimes with a blood test) and a snack at 3 p.m. A second blood test at 5:15 p.m. and another shot at 5:30 p.m. precede her 6 p.m. dinner. And she usually has a snack at 8:15 p.m., before bedtime.
"You have to go on doing these things and handle it as positively and as calmly as you can for the child's sake," said her mother. "She's been real brave. She doesn't think it's fair - and it's not. It's no fun having to prick your finger and take shots every day."
The other two Stormont children, ages 15 and 17, have been somewhat bitter about the extra attention given to Charles.
"When they were little, they resented the fact that I would keep a snack in my purse for him and not for them," she said. "They think to this day that he is loved and favored more than they are. It's very difficult to deal with, but I think as they mature and have some nurturing responsibilities of their own that their feelings will change."
All three children have attended camps, along with other diabetics and their siblings. Stormont said Charles' brother and sister had to administer injections of a saline solution to themselves as one camp activity to help siblings become more understanding of diabetes management.
When Charles was 8 years old, he had a convulsive seizure after a stressful experience that was complicated by missing a meal after an injection. Stormont said his brother and sister pulled together and held the glucose solution while the rescue squad started an I.V. Charles was unconscious at the time.
"We were all frightened to death," Stormont recalled. "And we've had some less spectacular reactions over the years."
"In some ways it can make your family closer," Melissa's mother said. "You have to pay more attention to each other."
Current research include studying the immune system relative to the disease, looking for a possible genetic defect that may cause diabetes, investigating the role viruses play in bringing it on, refining laser technology to treat eye problems that stem from the condition, developing alternatives to injections (insulin pumps, for example) and techniques for self-monitoring glucose levels, and establishing tissue banks for research.
Some of the more controversial research projects involve transplanting insulin-producing cells in laboratory animals and developing human insulin as an alternative to using animal insulin.
"The whole animal research issue is getting a lot of attention and it really concerns me," Melissa's mother said. "There are some radicals in the animal rights groups who are fanatical enough to issue death threats to researchers. It's scary. Animal research is crucial. That's how insulin was developed."
Until insulin injections were developed, diabetics could expect to live for just a few years, Sparrow said. "With insulin, life expectancy for diabetics changed dramatically."
Recently, the U.S. government has restricted the practice of extracting insulin-producing cells from aborted fetuses for research purposes.
"The whole controversy is over buying and selling aborted fetuses," said Stormont. "I agree that there are a lot of moral and ethical issues, but there are fetuses that are going to be aborted anyway. I would like to see the research continued."
Diabetes strikes 1.9 out of 1,000 school-aged children, said Sparrow, and males and females are almost equally affected. Each year 10,000 juveniles are diagnosed with the disease. Between 100,000 and 150,000 children in the U.S. have the disease. And the disease kills 300,000 people in the United States each year.
by CNB