Archive for April 23rd, 2009
The following instructions are provided to help other people responsible for your child and a copy should be given to the school teacher and anyone else who is going to be responsible for him at times when he could have a hypo reaction.
Diabetes
With modern treatment a child with diabetes can live in perfect health with few restrictions of activities.
Treatment relies on daily injections of insulin, a carefully regulated diet, plenty of exercise and regular medical supervision. It is important that the child has his meals (including between meal snacks) on time, and it is usually desirable for him to have extra food or sugar before very vigorous sport, such as swimming or lengthy physical training. Beyond this he should lead as normal a life as possible and no differentiation should be made between him and other children. A child usually feels self-conscious about his diabetes and it is better not to draw undue attention to his condition. Discipline or punishment should not be different for a diabetic child except that he must not have delays in his meals, including morning and afternoon snacks.
Mealtimes for a person with diabetes can be adjusted to fit in with school routine. A child with diabetes should normally have her snacks at recess and lunch with the other children.
If the school does alter recess or lunch times, it will be helpful to warn the parents, as some adjustment in the diet or insulin may be necessary.
Even with a careful regimen, a child may have a reaction to his insulin – the so called hypoglycemic reaction or ‘hypo’. These instructions have been prepared as a guide for teachers and others if they should be responsible for a child during such a reaction.
Hypo reactions
A hypo reaction refers to the behaviour of a child when there is an over-effect of insulin.
Any unusual behaviour in a child known to have diabetes and having insulin, and who previously appeared to be normal, is most probably an insulin reaction, and treatment should be given for it at once. A child may have a different type of reaction on different occasions.
Early stages: (one or more signs may occur at the same time)
1. Unusual lack of concentration, and later listlessness or drowsiness
2. Pallor in a child who previously had a normal skin colour
3. Sweating which may not be appropriate to the weather
4. Undue stubbornness
5. Unusual difficulty in reading and perhaps in speech
6. Readiness to cry for no real reason
7. Headache
Very rarely, if appropriate treatment is not given, a reaction may become more severe.
Later stages: (most children never experience these signs, particularly if treatment for the early stages is prompt)
1. Inco-ordination of movements and unsteady gait
2. Twitching of face or limbs
3. Vomiting
4. Convulsion
5. Unconsciousness
The child may complain of any of the following: hunger, ‘jitters’, numbness and tingling of tongue and lips, double vision, headache, faintness, or sleepiness.
Time of reaction: Each type of insulin acts differently but most reactions in children occur in the hour before the meal time is due. They may occur during or after strenuous exercise.
*69/54/5*
Some particular event may motivate us to do something. At another time we may do the same thing from quite different motivation. Just now, when you were looking at TV, were you doing so for entertainment, for enlightenment or simply as an escape?
The housewife has got her husband off to work, and the children off to school. It was all a bit of a rush. And the little one has been complaining of a pain in his tummy. ‘I suppose it was his nerves. But it could be something else.’ She is stressed. Makes a cup of tea, turns on the TV just to help her settle out of it. Her thoughts are taken away from the little one’s tummy, and her husband being in such a rush that there was no kiss goodbye. In a little while her stress is reduced, and she gets on with the chores of housework.
So in this way TV becomes an effective and rather harmless means of relieving minor stress. Her husband comes home. He is stressed by the problems of the day. She wants to discuss household events; she needs to talk to relieve the emotional isolation of being alone in the house. But because of his own tension, he immediately turns on the TV. His tension is reduced and hers rises! Of course, the real answer to this situation lies in the fact that the simple ‘being with’ of man and woman reduces the tension of both parties.
The danger is that TV can become the major stress-reducing mechanism for all and sundry in the household. Anyone who feels a little tense or restless from minor stress turns on the TV. It does not matter what the programme is, it is only the distraction that is wanted. This kind of escape from stress becomes socially destructive from the time that is wasted. If the individual can learn simple, biologically effective ways of managing stress, he is free to use this wasted time in productive leisure that will improve the quality of his life.
The individual may become aware that he is in fact hooked on TV in just the same way as others are hooked on alcohol, drugs or tranquillizers. This awareness itself may be quite upsetting, and will compound with other factors to increase still further the stress situation.
*72/98/5*
«Do men get silly as they get older? He is drinking too much. Not much. But enough to be too much. We go to a party. He gobbles up two or three whiskies as soon as he can get them. Then wanders off. Flirts with the younger women. Some of them are flattered. After all, he is a distinguished man. But I am sure some of them would like to give him the slip, and talk with men of their own age. I am just left to my own devices. I don’t like it. Feel embarrassed. Spoke to him about it. All he said was, “You are all right. You can talk to people”, and left it at that. But it is not all that easy for a woman. Besides, I am basically a shy person. I think people notice that the evening goes by and he hardly says a word to me.
‘It’s really the drink. If we go where there is not much drink we stay together, and I quite enjoy it, but he feels it rather a bore.
‘Worse than this, I am frightened he will be caught driving with too high a blood alcohol level. That would be awful for a man in his position. »
She needs to enlist the help of one of his friends. Someone of equal professional status, who can speak to him as man to man on an equal footing.
When we warn someone who is acting foolishly, we want to warn them in areas which are socially acceptable for discussion. In this case his friend should warn him about the dangers of drinking and driving, but should leave the effect of his drinking on his wife alone, as it is much more difficult to tolerate advice in this other area. The effect of the advice, if it is heeded, covers both areas.
It is much better for the advice to be given by a third party, rather than the woman herself. If she gives it, there is a likelihood that it will cause further tension between them.
There is another point. In dealing with stress situations, counseling and the giving of advice is usually not much help, because the type of understanding needed to be effective is something deeper and more biologically significant than the logical understanding of our intellect. But in this case, the consequences of drinking and driving are so simple, and so well acknowledged, that direct counseling may well be effective.
*34/98/5*
What is it?
Wounds (cuts, abrasions, ulcers in the bowel, surgical incisions, and so on) heal naturally, restoring the surface or lining of the body to its undamaged state. The time taken for a wound to heal varies from place to place on the body from a few days to several weeks. Unfortunately, many people, especially those having operations, heal far less quickly than they should.
What causes it?
• Poor nutrition generally, especially a shortage of protein.
• Too little vitamin Ñ in the diet.
• A shortage of vitamin A.
Prevention
• Animal research shows that malnourished individuals suffer twice as many complications during healing, and that twice as many of them die from their wounds, as do normally nourished ones. The most common complication in human wound healing in hospitals is infection-in fact this is the single most common reason for postoperative patients to stay longer in hospital than they should have to. From this and other evidence it is clear that the person with a wound needs good-quality foods high in protein. Protein is the vital supplier of the raw materials necessary to rebuild damaged tissue. It does not, of course, have to be animal protein.
• Eat more vitamin Ñ. Numerous studies have shown how valuable this vitamin is in normal wound healing. One study of over 1,000 patients with wounds found that wound infections worsened as blood vitamin Ñ levels fell. Some of the people had white-blood- ‘ cell levels of vitamin Ñ that were as low as those in people with scurvy. Similar studies have been done in patients with bed sores. Two 500 mg tablets of vitamin Ñ a day healed the sores twice as fast as expected.
• Eat more vitamin A. Even minor wounds, it seems, increase the body’s need for this vitamin. Animals fed vitamin A have stronger wounds (artificially created in a laboratory). Some severe burn or accident victims develop what are called ‘stress ulcers’ in their intestines. A study in Arizona found that giving such people 50,000-100,000 IU vitamin A twice daily reduced the stress ulcers to less than a third of what would be expected in an un-supplemented group.
Vitamin A is also valuable for anyone taking steroids for the relief of arthritis or other inflammatory conditions. Anti-inflammatory drugs and even aspirin retard open-wound healing, and vitamin A can help restore the balance. Zinc can also be protective against these effects of cortisone.
• Eat more zinc and zinc-containing foods. Zinc works alongside vitamin A in wound healing and helps mobilize stores of the vitamin. It is also essential for the production of new proteins and connective tissue. In a UK study, zinc accelerated the healing of leg ulcers, for example.
*256/72/5*