The Warning Signs in a Child
Reviewed by CDE Mehandi Sharma · Updated
Type 1 diabetes announces itself far faster than Type 2. Symptoms usually develop over a few days or weeks, and in children they can move quickly.
The main signs are:
- Passing urine much more often than usual, including at night.
- Extreme thirst that drinking does not settle.
- Unexplained weight loss, sometimes despite eating well or eating more.
- Blurred vision.
Alongside these, a child may be unusually tired, irritable, or simply not themselves.
One sign gets missed repeatedly: a child who was reliably dry at night starting to wet the bed again. It is easy to read as a behavioural problem or a phase. Together with thirst and weight loss, it is a reason to get a blood glucose test the same week.
Speed matters here in a way it does not with Type 2. Left undiagnosed, Type 1 progresses to diabetic ketoacidosis, a serious and sometimes life-threatening condition. A great many children in India are diagnosed only at that stage.