A client recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes would most likely report which clinical manifestation during health history?

• A. Nervousness
• B. Polyuria
• C. Nocturia
• D. Diaphoresis

Answer: (B)

When blood glucose is very high, the kidneys can’t reabsorb all of it, so glucose spills into the urine (glycosuria). The high glucose concentration pulls water into the urine by osmosis, increasing urine output—a process called osmotic diuresis. This leads to excess urination, or polyuria, which is a common and characteristic finding in someone newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Nervousness and diaphoresis are more typical of hypoglycemia, not the hyperglycemic state at onset, and nocturia is essentially urination at night that often results from the same polyuria. So the symptom that best fits early type 1 diabetes is polyuria.