Type 1 Diabetes and Puberty

Today, I was browsing through my facebook feed and came across someone who was having trouble with their boy’s blood glucose levels. The problem was, her son’s blood glucose levels were fluctuating between 210-340 throughout the day and night. She did what is expected of a caretaker for a diabetic and gave the boy corrections based on his Blood Glucose Level. From her description, this started around the age of 13 and has become more common as he has grown to 14 years old. So the question is: Why is his blood glucose levels fluctuating? Puberty

Actually, this is quite common for young boys. The cause for the fluctuation in this specific case is most likely puberty. Puberty causes boy’s hormones to change drastically which can also cause their blood glucose levels to fluctuate. While that may sound scary to most, it is actually completely normal for this to happen. The good news is that once the boy is done with puberty, he is also done with the rapid changing of his blood glucose levels.

Now, what about the girls? Girls can have fluctuation in their blood glucose levels because of puberty but the thing that impacts girls and their blood glucose levels the most is menstruation. This can be a shock to some girls because it isn’t something that goes away like puberty. Girls… This is something you must learn to live with but luckily they’re are plenty of articles out there with advice on this particular topic.