There are many difficulties for children and adolescents with type 2 diabetes. Having diabetes imposes certain restrictions that goes against the usual childhood experience. Treatments always have to be thought about and leaving the house always entails checking they have their insulin or their glucometer. For you, the parent, it is a constant concern for your child’s health and treatment requirements.

If your child is diagnosed with type 2, here are some important guidelines to consider:

1. What do you need to know:

• it is important to have a full understanding of type 2 diabetes and to understand the rationale behind your child’s treatment and medication.
• essentially it is a condition with no known cure which affects the body’s metabolism
• in type 1 diabetes, a defect in the immune system leads to destruction of the beta cells. This occurs suddenly and the pancreas stops producing insulin and insulin-injections are needed for survival
• In type 2 diabetes however, insulin is produced by the body. There is not insulin-lack but rather the inability of the body to use it effectively. Blockage of its action is known as insulin-resistance. The body is forced to create much larger doses and with time, can cause pancreatic malfunction and other complications.

2. Psychological effects:

After knowledge of the disease, the second important thing to remember is the affect type 2 diabetes has:

• on the lifetime and psychology of the patient
• also on friends and family members who are involved and closely related to the diabetic

In the early days following diagnosis many people often discount the social implications of diabetes. However, without proper mental preparation for all of the ways this condition will impact lives, it is possible for resentment to develop between the diabetic child and his siblings. Also, the psychological stress on you as parents is often great and can lead to feelings of self-blame.

Once the emotional considerations are taken care of, either through counseling or group therapy, the next step is to acquaint yourself with the available treatment plans.

3. Treatments

Most children with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese at the time of diagnosis. Treatment often begins with weight control and proper nutrition. Don’t single out your child with diabetes and make them eat different foods from the rest of the family. Encouraging the whole family to eat similar foods will benefit everyone. Research has shown that optimal control without medications is obtainable in less than ten per cent of adults. Some children are given metformin and have good results, others who are very ill at the time of diagnosis may need insulin-injections at first to reduce their high blood sugar levels.

It is also essential to change your child’s sedimentary lifestyle; this is necessary to speed up weight loss but it also increases insulin-sensitivity at the cellular level.

Type 2 diabetes affects the whole family, don’t single out your child with diabetes and treat them differently to everyone else. They will feel they are being punished.

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