autism and diabetes

[rosieoday]

Hi I don't post very often but I lurk a lot. I have learned a lot from you good people. My 11yr old grandson with autism has severe communication disorder being about 95% echolalic can't ask or answer questions or tell you how he feels with any certainty has been diagnosed with insulin dependent type I diabetes.

I wanted to know if anyone else her is dealing with this or knows any one who is? Right now he is accepting everything we have to do with the shots and testing his BG and restricting his food. What a blessing that is.

Thank you for any words of support.

[bilby]

Hi and welcome ...

I seem to remember someone else on the forum here whose child with autism also had diabetes, but haven't been online for ages so can't recall who or how long ago or if they're still posting.

I don't know of anyone in the real world whose child with autism has diabetes, but I do know of several where one of the siblings who is NT have juvenile diabetes. I started noticing it becoming more prevalent about 10 years ago.

It is definitely a blessing that your grandson is complying with his medical and dietary regimen.

I can only imagine how much more stressful this must be for everyone.

When my son was around 8 I worked out that he had all the symptoms of reactive hypoglycemia and found he coped with everything and functioned a lot better when I managed his food intake better (smaller meals more often) and kept him on low GI foods (slow-burning). We follow this regimen still all these years later, and he knows within himself that he functions better when he sticks with it.

I found this Canadian reference to Type I Diabetes being more common in the population of children with autism than the general population ... you've probably already seen it, but here's the link -

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/content/full/28/4/925

and another link that concluded no link between Autism and Diabetes -

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/content/full/29/2/484

There seems to be a higher prevalence of autoimmune disorders in general in children with autism and their families.

One family I know ... the mother has Celiac disease, her daughter with ASD, and her son has Type I Diabetes.

[rosieoday]

Oh thank you Bilby Yes it is very stressful for us. I live next door to him and his mother so he is at my house evey day and always eaten some meals here. I assume aot of his care. He is a picky eater so that makes it even harder. he will absolutly not accept any food that is not on his agenda. We have tried all kinds of tricks to not much avail, but we will keep trying.

What do you mean reactive hypoclycemia? I assume it would mean not diabetes but food does affect his BG. What are some slow burning foods?

Thanks for the websites. I will check them out. It is interesting to methat one of the many theroris of autism is autoimmune and diabetes is autoimmune and his doctor said we may check him for celiac later. Heaven forbid!!

He is a good boy and the heart of my life

Thank yo again Rose

[Mother's Heart]

Rose,
All I've got is a welcoming cyber hug for you. I don't know anything about connections between autism and diabetes.

Bilby, I do wonder if the rise in diabetes in asd families you've noted could be coincidental, just the same rise that has been noted in the ped population in general??

[bilby]

Rose,
All I've got is a welcoming cyber hug for you. I don't know anything about connections between autism and diabetes.

Bilby, I do wonder if the rise in diabetes in asd families you've noted could be coincidental, just the same rise that has been noted in the ped population in general??

Yes, probably coincidental in the long run ...

[bilby]

Rose ... it would be hard adjusting his diet when he is a picky eater with limited range of foods. I wish you luck (success) with it.

To be honest I can't even remember how I got around that problem way back then. I can remember that he went through a fad where he only wanted to eat things like muesli bars, buckwheat pancakes, rice-cakes, mashed potato, nutrigrain, popcorn (not candied), watermelon, bananas and sultanas (raisins in USA???) which I initially thought wasn't too unhealthy but quickly realised that he worsened dramatically and accidentally stumbled across a short description in a naturopathic book written by an initially conventional-type doctor who gave a guideline about foods low/medium/high in glycemic index and I noticed that the new foods he was eating were all higher in GI (some surprisingly very high such as the watermelon, rice-cakes and mashed potato) than the foods he'd previously been eating and that he had all the symptoms that the doctor explained about reactive hypoglycemia.

These foods are also higher in salicylates, sulphites and even amines especially if the fruit is over-ripe, so those things would have impacted also.

We were successful in the end though.

A quick explanation of my son's reaction to foods was that some affected him very quickly and made him appear intoxicated - I would explain this as being like a "legless drunk".

Other foods affected him less obviously and took longer ... where he became like a person less obviously intoxicated, but affecting his behaviour and he would become weepy/miserable/confused at the very least, and more often aggressive, destructive, confused, self-injurious.

The times these reactions would hit were most likely to be after breakfast, around 11.00 am, 3.00 pm and 7.00 pm.

Here's a site which I have found helpful over the years and still refer to from time to time -

http://www.glycemicindex.com/

[rosieoday]

Mothers heart
Thank you for the hug. I need all I can get. He was a happy good boy today.

Bilby
He has behaviors just like you said your son had when he ate the wrong foods, It is just so hard to know when it is autistic or maybe the blood sugar is high or low. I hate to be poking his finger all the time but since he can't tell you how he feels I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.

[bilby]

Hi again Rose :)

It must be emotionally draining to know without doubt that you must prick his finger and give shots when necessary no matter what.

Here's another link I finally came across in recent times which has a lot of good info that we had to learn the hard way through bad experiences.

For instance, it explains how a banana initially has a GI of around 43, but this changes as the banana ripens and a ripened banana is 74 and over-ripe ones are even higher.

I remember thinking that a tofu desert as a treat would be healthy but it affected my son terribly even before he'd finished eating it. The info on the site below lists frozen tofu desert as a GI of 164 !!! This is just one example that comes to memory where we/he learned the hard way, whereas if we had access to the info on that site he would have been spared that experience.

Anyway here's the site -

http://optimalhealth.cia.com.au/gi17.html

Here's a link to a spreadsheet with all the values on it and that you can work everything out with (interactive).

http://optimalhealth.cia.com.au/GlycemicLoad.xls

The value of Glycemic Load has to be factored in as well (the spreadsheet link above helps with this). For instance my son loves green seedless grapes but he can only have a couple at a time because even though are considered low GI of 46, they have a high Glycemic Load value and end up having that same bad reaction. Another example which I only just learned about myself and explains a lot is that sweetened condensed milk which is in a lot of things has a medium GI of 61, but the Glycemic Load (GL) is a whopping 5,490 !!!

The Glycemic Load per meal should not exceed 3000.

[Isabelle]

Rose! Welcome! I am glad you like our interaction.

About autism and diabetes. For decades we have been told that diet is behaviour and that excess of sweet stuff was behind hyperactive behaviour on some children. In my son's case the administration of Risperdal caused hyperglycemia, so far it has not developed into full diabetes.
Risperdal and Zyprexa have as adverse effects gaining weight and developing diabetes....among many other severe side effects.

[rosieoday]

Bilby I appreciate you giving me the links. I am checking them out and saveing them.

Isabelle He has never been on any meds and won't be unless there is no other resort.

Rose