Question:
From Telford, Shropshire, UK:
My 10 year old daughter has had Type 1 diabetes for 7 years, following flu virus (I always believed). She now has antibodies in blood, which relate to thyroid, and a problem in the future. Is this common? Has she an immune deficiency disease? Without scaremongering, what else could be around the corner? Forewarn is to forearm! Many thanks.
Answer:
Type 1 diabetes has been recently associated with a growing list of other
autoimmune
disorders in a variety of patterns come to be known as the
Autoimmune Polyglandular Syndromes.
The value of this definition, which you may want to discuss with your daughter's pediatric endocrinologist, is that it would justify a special alertness for
hypothyroidism,
as in your daughter's case, and other
antibodies
now measured routinely in many centers, namely anti-21-hydroxylase for Addison's disease and anti-glutamyl transferase for the celiac syndrome. The chance of these being positive are less than 5% and of there being any clinical manifestations even smaller; but there is a case for being forewarned.
MS
Original posting 24 May 1998
Posted to Thyroid
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