Who knew what strep could do?

At age 5, Megan was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. 2 Days after Christmas, she began drinking everything in sight. For a kid who was picky about juice boxes, she drank one right after another. The only thing she complained about was her throat hurting. We took her to our family doctor to find out she had strep throat. No big deal, gave us some medicine and said we were good to go. After I mentioned she was drinking a lot and had been having accidents at night, even though she was potty trained and hadn't had an accident in over 2 years, our P.A. decided to run a urine test to check for a UTI. After waiting on the results, the main doctor at the facility came in and said that Megan's sugar level was coming up as "high" and we needed to get her to the hospital right away.

After being admitted, they found her sugar level was 642. Strep throat seemed to creep up out of nowhere every few months. Megan was hospitalized over 6 times due to strep throat, once sending her into the PICU in DKA. Who knew something that seems so little could send her sugar skyrocketing and unmanageable. Finally, we were able to have her tonsils removed. 3 years later, we are happy to say she has had NO hospitalizations and her diabetes is under control.

Sarah Hurst
Salem, WV