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Diagnosing diabetes in children can be scary and difficult. Symptoms can be subtle and mimic other health issues, and kids aren’t always as great at verbalizing how they’re feeling. So, the disease can sometimes go undiagnosed for a while.
Author, entrepreneur, mom, and Sanofi spokesperson Chrissy Teigen recently went through this with her son, Miles, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes last year after ending up in the hospital due to a bacterial infection.
On Monday, Chrissy joined the Women’s Health Lab in conversation with Women’s Health executive editor Abigail Cuffey to open up about her experience. During the Sanofi-sponsored panel, “The T1D Balancing Act: Perspectives of a Mom, Caregiver, and Screening,” Chrissy shared her son’s diagnosis story, the impact of his diagnosis on her family, and why early detection through T1D screening is so important.
Miles’ diagnosis came as a surprise.
As Chrissy previously shared with People, her 6-year-old son’s diagnosis journey began after he contracted the bacterial infection shigella during football camp and landed in the hospital. “It really took Miles down harder than a lot of the other kids,” she said. “His pain was incredible, and he’s a pretty tough little boy.”
Miles had “blood test after blood test” at Cedars-Sinai hospital, before he was finally diagnosed with type 1 diabetes—and Chrissy said he had no symptoms of the condition before that.
“We were thrown into this world of chaos and having to learn so much all at once,” she said. “Everything was put on pause. We were finding ourselves going in and out of hospitals, sitting down with our notebooks taking copious notes and taking videos of everything someone was doing with the insulin jar.”
Now, she’s advocating for awareness of screening for type 1 diabetes in kids.
During the panel, Chrissy shared with Women’s Health that she was surprised to learn that you could screen for type 1 diabetes. (Pediatricians can order the test.) “I was blown away by the fact that not only did I not know that screening was an option when I first had children—I have four kids by the way—I didn’t hear about early screening at any point during any of my pregnancies and even after Miles was diagnosed,” she said. “It would’ve made an incredible amount of difference.”
But Chrissy said it’s important for parents to say something if their child develops type 1 diabetes symptoms, which can include frequent urination, excessive thirst, extreme hunger, fatigue, and unexplained weight loss, per the Mayo Clinic.
“There’s times where I didn’t speak up just because I didn’t want to cause a stir or throw anybody off, or go against the plan,” she said. “There’s been so many times in my life that I’ve been like that. But advocating for yourself and your family and being able to feel like you can have a relationship where you can talk to your doctor and ask for things like early screening for type 1.”
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