Springstead senior overcomes daily challenges of type 1 diabetes
Renee Wern is ambitious, self-motivated and well on her way toward a very promising future. Age 17, the Springstead High School senior will graduate in June and is nearly complete with requirements for her associate’s degree from dual-enrollment classes at PHCC.
Wern is also a well decorated soccer player who plays defense Springstead’s award winning soccer team. The team is currently preparing for districts, which end Friday. If they win, they will go on to regions.
Juggling a full academic schedule, advanced sports and the typical social calendar of a popular high school senior would ware thin even the most dedicated teen. But Wern, with sweet bright eyes and an even sweeter disposition, makes it look easy.
Factor in that Wern has been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, a rarer form of diabetes that affects only five to eight percent of diabetics.
Type 1 Diabetes, formerly called Juvenile Diabetes, requires regular monitoring of blood sugar levels and insulin therapy to manage the disease.
Wern was diagnosed in her sophomore year when she began feeling symptoms of listlessness, drastic weight loss, headaches, limitless thirst and frequent urges to use the restroom. Because her older brother is also a Type 1 Diabetic, her mother knew what symptoms to look for and immediately had her daughter’s glucose levels tested.
“It was like over 300,” Wern remembered.
According to Dr. Eihab H. Tawfik, a primary care physician with Hernando Diabetes Treatment Center, Type 1 Diabetes is typically diagnosed in children and young adults, when the body doesn’t produce insulin, a hormone that converts sugar, starches and other food into energy.
Diabetes mellitus or Type 2 diabetes, what is commonly referred to as ‘diabetes’, is a condition where the pancreas either doesn’t produce enough insulin or the body does not respond properly to the production of insulin. Glucose then accumulates in the blood and can lead to various health complications.
In Hernando County, about 11 percent of the population is diagnosed with diabetes mellitus. About five percent are diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.
While Type 2 is genetic, Type 1, said Dr. Tawfic, is typically caused by an autoimmune disease, like lupus, Sjogren’s disease, or syrolitus, where the body’s own cells attack healthy cells in the pancreas.
“They don’t have to have these cases to have diabetes,” Tawfik said.
“The immune system doesn’t have to be bad enough to have an autoimmune disease. But we do know that most diagnoses of Type 1 are caused by autoimmune diseases.”
Type 1 is insulin dependent, Tawfik said. The pancreas isn’t making any insulin. Type 1 diabetics therefore require insulin injections. An insulin pump that administers insulin consistently as sugar levels fluctuate, and is the more common method.
Wern, uses an insulin pump attached to her abdomen through a patch. She carries the apparatus in her pocket.
The most difficult part of her condition, Wern said, is keeping her glucose level at a safe level.
“I know if it’s too high or too low it can affect me in the long term,” she said. “When it’s too high, I have to drink a lot so I don’t get dehydrated. And if it’s too low, I get in starvation mode where I have to eat or I’ll feel weak and shaky.”
Wern checks her blood sugar levels at least four times a day and uses the insulin pump, except when she is playing soccer. Prior to a game, she injects the insulin to get through without complications.
Dr. Tawfic said that living with Type 1 diabetes is manageable and, if monitored carefully, most Type 1 diabetics can live normal lives.
He speaks from direct experience since Dr. Tawfic is a Type 1 diabetic.
He contracted his Type 1 diabetes two weeks after being injected with the mumps vaccine, which was more common in underdeveloped countries where vaccine programs were not so aggressively administered.
“I was 12 when I was diagnosed back in Egypt,” Tawfic said. “It actually wasn’t known for weeks. I was just getting sicker and sicker and extremely tired.”
Exhaustion is a common symptom, he said, as well as blurred vision, extreme thirst, and frequent urges to urinate. Tawfic remembered having to use the restroom every 15 minutes or so, and needing to excuse himself regularly during school.
Diabetes can lead to very dangerous complications, he stressed. It is very important that parents be well aware if their child shows any symptoms and seek medical attention immediately if diabetes is suspected.
Parents should be cautioned, he said, because frequent urinating might show up as bed wetting and therefore misinterpreted as another issue.
By the time bed wetting happens, Tawfic went on, the levels could be well into the 400s.
Undiagnosed and untreated, Type 1 diabetes can could cause the brain to shut down, he cautioned.
In his own experience, Tawfic could have easily died if the testing of his glucose levels had been delayed any longer. The test wasn’t ordered right away because of his age. In fact, he was transferred the ICU before his glucose was measured.
It is very important, he said, that parents take symptoms very seriously to avoid future complications or even death.
It is important that Type 1 diabetics learn how to affectively manage their disease. “They have to take multiple injections a day,” he said, which might include long acting insulin that last 3 to 4 hours and shorter acting insulin before and after meals.
Nearly 100 percent of Tawfic’s Type 1 diabetic patients use an insulin pump that administers constant insulin. “It acts as the pancreas,” he said. “It really is the nearest thing to a pancreas.”
Wern is certainly proving that Type 1 diabetes, with careful monitoring and maintenance, doesn’t have to stop normal activity. In her case, she is taking her life experiences to the highest level.
Like Dr. Tawfic, Wern’s condition motivated her to use her experience to help others. She is majoring in biomedical science, determined to be an endocrinologist when she completes college.
For now, however, her immediate focus is on winning districts for her Springstead Soccer team that will lead them to regionals.
“I’m confident we will do it,” she said.
Dr. Tawfik is board certified in internal medicine, with offices located in Hernando and Citrus counties.
His Hernando County office is located at 10089 Cortez Blvd. in Brooksville. In Citrus County, his office is at 7394 West Gulf Lake Highway, Crystal River.
For more information about Hernando Diabetes Treatment Center, call (352) 397-2099 or visit their website at hernandodiabetestreatment.com. For Citrus County, call (352) 564-0444 or visit citrusdiabetestreatment.com.
Kim Dame is a correspondent for Hernando Today. She can be reached at [email protected].
