CHEO Warns Doctors and Parents to Watch for Classic Signs of Diabetes in Children.

   Half a dozen children die every year in Canada from new onset diabetes that hasn’t yet been diagnosed. The warning signs are there, but someone, somewhere along the way, missed them.   The Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) is hoping to change that by sharing the story of one little girl, lucky to be alive 

   Her name is Kaitlyn Lovell and to look at her today, you'd never know  the 5-year-old came very close to dying.   All because the warnings signs of Type 1 Diabetes were missed, until she started slipping into a coma.  Kaitlyn found out she had Type 1 Diabetes two years ago.  One in 300 children in Canada have it.   But HOW Kaitlyn found out -- still makes her parents shudder.

   “We almost lost her, “ says her mother Sheree Lovell. 

   In June of 2010, Kaitlyn was sick with a virus,  had lost weight and started complaining of being really thirsty.

   “She started bed wetting again,” says Sheree Lovell., “soaking through diapers, which wasn’t normal for her at this point.  We did research on-line and Type 1 Diabetes was what popped up.  Her parents took her to a doctor who didn't think it was diabetes and instead suggested a bladder infection.  Kaitlyn was put on antibiotics.  By the next day, however,  the little girl was critically ill.  Her parents raced her to CHEO.

   “She was very sick, an hour or two away from going into a coma from what we understand,” says Chris Lovell, Kaitlyn’s father.

   Under the care now of a specialist at CHEO, Kaitlyn is thriving.  Dr. Margaret Lawson says all too often, doctors miss classic symptoms of new onset diabetes.

   CHEO Pediatric Endocrinologist Dr. Margaret Lawson says, “ Every year in Canada, about twenty percent, one in five children who present with new onset diabetes, the diagnosis is delayed to the point where the child presents with a life-threatening condition called diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA)”   DKA, Dr. Lawson explains, is a severe lack of insulin that can cause brain damage, even killed a child.  Dr. Lawson  says diagnosing Type 1 Diabetes is as simple as a finger prick.

   “If your child is developing symptoms that suggest diabetes, peeing more, drinking more, wetting the bed again at night, you need to go see a physician today. “  Lawson continues, “Ask whether it could be diabetes and get tested that day with a blood sugar to find out whether that’s what’s happening.”

   Now, eight to ten times a day, Kaitlyn Lovell gives herself a little prick to test her own blood sugar.  It's a routine now that doesn't even phase the 5-year-old.  “Does it hurt?” asks her mother.  “No, not at all,” replies Kaitlyn.  

   Today, Kaitlyn's rosy cheeks tell it all.  She still has diabetes, always will but she is managing it well and as Dr. Lawson points out, “she is one lucky little girl” to be alive.