Juvenile DiabetesIt is a worrying fact that diabetes emerges as a major health hazard of all time. Studies have found that this deadly disease takes away more lives every year than any other disease.
Now a day children are also being affected by this deadly disease. It affects children of any age, even new born babies and kids. If left unnoticed, this disease becomes more severe and can even lead to brain damage. However in majority of the cases diabetes is overlooked in children. It is because there is a false belief that children won’t get affected by diabetes. Sometimes diabetes is misdiagnosed as flu or it is mistakenly considered as some other disease. The effect of diabetes is severe as it may eventually lead to nerve damage, blindness and kidney failure in your child and thus making his life more complicated.
Just as in the case of adults, the exact cause of diabetes in children remains unknown. However it is believed that both genetic and environmental factors induce the formation of diabetes in your children. In contrary, studies have found that Type 1 diabetes develop among children who don’t have a family history of diabetes
Symptoms of diabetes in Children
The symptoms of diabetes in children remain the same as in adults. The symptoms seem to appear with in a few weeks after being affected diseases. Some of the common symptoms that a diabetic child used to come across are
frequent urination
unquenched thirst
sudden weight loss
fatigue
headaches
abdominal pain
behavioral problems
Treatments for a diabetic child
Almost every child with diabetes has to undergo the insulin treatment. In such a case, your child needs individual care and attention. For that, you have to adopt an individual insulin routine for your child.
While following the dosage regime, use the heavy dosage insulin during the daytime and low dose insulin during the night. However infants don’t need injection at night, but they will need when they grow up. On the other hand grown up children can use insulin pumps to have a constant control over diabetes. During the initial stage of diagnosis your child needs only slight doses of insulin. Just like insulin treatment, you should have an eye over your child’s blood sugar level and also in the avoidance of hypo (a condition due to the attack of low blood sugar).
What the parents should do?
It will be definitely a tough situation for the parents. Putting you under stress makes thing even worse. So it is you who has to support your child as well as the family.
First of all understand the various aspects of the disease, its symptoms and the treatment methods. This will help you benefit your child.
You should know how to use the insulin injections and also teach your child when getting older.
Inform your child’s school and friends circle, so that they can take necessary steps at the time of emergency.
Check the blood sugar level at regular intervals and seek the advice of doctor.
Annual walk brings hope to families who deal with the disease one step at a time.
Ben Newell was only 4 when he went on his first Walk to Cure Diabetes two years ago. As he and his parents reached their car afterward, Ben had a question.
“Is my diabetes cured now?” he said. “That’s what we told him,” says his mother, June. “This is the Walk to Cure Diabetes.” As Ben goes door-to-door rasing money this week for this year’s walk on Saturday, the disease shared by 16 million Americans remains incurable, but the prospects are looking more hopeful.
Last spring saw a vaccine that prevented the development of Type I, juvenile diabetes, in mice. Summer brought news of possible genetic manipulation that would enable people to grow the insulin-producing cells that are missing in juvenile diabetics. Research continues on transplanting pancreatic islet cells for the same purpose.
Ben, who has learned that scientists need lots and lots of money, is racing the calendar. He was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at 10 months, and complications can surface as early as five to six years later. Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure, adult blindness and amputations that don’t result from injuries. Diabetics are at least twice as likely as the rest of us to have a heart attack or stroke, and their average lifespan is 15 years shorter.
Meanwhile, Ben is a 6-year-old boy who loves playing football, soccer and golf and is excited by Pokemon and dinosaurs. He’s like other sixth-graders, aside from the insulin shots and the finger prickings and the tightly regulated snack regimen that sometimes requires eating when he’s not hungry or going without when he is.
Most 6-year-olds’ parents, for example, have never said, “You can’t have any fruit now but you can have a pickle.” Nor do they have such a thorough knowledge of food labels. “It sure changes your view of a grocery store,” Ben’s mother says.
Ben’s day always begins with a blood test from a prick in his finger. “There’s no sleeping in on the weekends,” Newell says. Then he gets an insulin shot as soon as the blood-sugar test results show how much he needs. It’s the shots that really hurt, Ben says.
Juvenile diabetics produce no insulin, and Type II or adult-onset diabetics either produce not enough or don’t use it efficiently. But diabetics lack the ability to regulate their blood sugar in either direction, so the insulin shots for lowering sugar levels in Type I are only part of the treatment. Frequent food is also essential, to keep the sugar levels from going too low.
So Ben always has breakfast, and he always has a snack at around 9:30. He needs to prick his finger again before lunch to see whether he needs another insulin shot or a heavier meal. He’s doing that himself this year at school.
“He gets frustrated now that he’s older,” Newell says. “He doesn’t want to be the last one to eat at lunch.” But the people at Elementary School and the Children’s Center for day care are both accommodating and interested in what they need to learn about diabetes, she says.
Ben eats another snack at 3 p.m. at day care, then has another blood test and shot before dinner at 6. He needs another test and snack later in the evening, and if his blood sugar is low then, his mom or dad tests him again at 2 a.m. Either way, they check on him then.
“He had a seizure last April at night, and he was afraid to go to bed unless we promised to do that,” Newell says.
The seizure, from very low blood sugar, illustrated how complex the chemistry of diabetes can be. That was one of the first nice spring days, and Ben had done a lot of running around. Exercise brings down blood sugar. “I guess we didn’t give him a big enough snack before bed,” Newell says.
But another time, when Ben played with a group of friends and his parents figured he’d need extra food, it turned out he needed insulin instead. The excitement and stimulation had driven his sugar up more than the activity brought it down.
“Any stress. How active you are. All that influences his blood-sugar levels,” Newell says.
He’s old enough now to recognize when his blood sugar is fluctuating. “He’s really picked up on the snack part,” Newell says, and knows to eat his cake without frosting, say, when his school class is having a party. On days when a field trip changes his routine, Ben brings up his schedule so his parents can adjust his snacking and sticking.
“He’ll tell us, `I’m low. I need some food,’ ‘ his mom says. His 4-year-old sister, Danielle also has learned the words “I’m low” mean “snack time.”
“So sometimes she’ll tell us she’s low,” Newell says with a laugh. “That usually doesn’t get her too far.”
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