How To Manage Diabetes In Toddlers

Your heart is in your stomach. Your toddler has just been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. What do you do? Where do you begin? How are you going to manage diabetes in a toddler? The fear and overwhelming worry can consume you when you are a parent who has just been informed that their toddler has diabetes. But fear not. Parents who have been there before you share their experiences and expertise to parents of toddlers in your shoes. Educating yourself about diabetes will alleviate your fears. So let’s get started with some tips to help keep your child safe, and at the same time, give you peace of mind.
Suzanne’s story
When Suzanne contacted TheDiabetesCouncil, she was beside herself. Her son had been admitted to the hospital. Shortly after, she found out that her child had Type 1 diabetes. It was like someone had taken a baseball bat, and hit Suzanne across the head with it. She felt dazed and helpless. On top of all that, she had an overwhelming sense of dread and fear. Her child has Type 1 diabetes, and he will have it for life. We decided to look into some tips to help Suzanne and others.
Our top tips for caring for a toddler with diabetes
Understand that you, (the parents) are the primary person responsible for managing your child’s diabetes
Remember that as the parent, you are the “case manager,” or primary person(s) responsible for your toddler’s diabetes care.
Use the tell, show, do method with toddlers
When you are trying to perform medical procedures on toddlers, a great method to use is the “tell, show, do,” method. As a nurse, we use this method al Continue reading

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Child's Plague: Inside the Boom in Childhood Diabetes

When 7-year-old Gus Ramsey of Weston, Massachusetts, was found to have type 1 (juvenile) diabetes in September 2007, it seemed mere coincidence that Grayson Welo, age 6 and living around the corner, had been diagnosed with the same disease a few months before. After all, type 1 was considered rare—only about 15,000 new cases were diagnosed annually in the United States at the beginning of the decade, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). At least Gus’s parents could be reassured that they lived in a healthy community: Weston, population 11,134, is the wealthiest town in the state, with three golf courses, 13 soccer fields, 19 baseball diamonds, and not a single fast-food restaurant.
Yet two months after Gus’s diagnosis, another child, Natalia Gormley, was found to have the disease on her tenth birthday. She lived on the other side of town. In January 2008 12-year-old Sean Richard was diagnosed. He lived less than a mile away. Then 8-year-old Finn Sullivan became the fifth case of type 1 diabetes diagnosed in Weston in less than a year. He lived on Gus’s block, just six doors down. And the cases kept on coming. Six-year-old Mya Smith, from nearby Wellesley, received the diagnosis in April. On June 15 came the jaw-dropper, when Walker Allen was diagnosed. His father, basketball star Ray Allen, scored 26 points two nights later in game six of the NBA Finals to give the Celtics their first championship in 22 years. Far more notable was Walker’s age: just 17 months.
Weston’s school nurses had never seen anything like it. There were now ei Continue reading

Poor Diet Linked to Half of Heart Disease, Stroke, Diabetes Deaths

Most of us are aware that what we eat affects our health. But the results of a new study illustrates that fact vividly: Almost half of deaths in one year caused by heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes in a large group of Americans were linked with a poor diet.
Researchers from Tufts University in Boston, the University of Cambridge in England and Montifiore Medical Center in New York analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They looked at the deaths of more than 700,000 people in 2012 from heart disease, stroke and type two diabetes, and examined 10 dietary factors among the population such as consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks, processed meats and sodium intake.
Their analysis showed that about 45 percent of the deaths were linked to unhealthy eating habits heavy on foods and nutrients that have long been associated with influencing cardiovascular and metabolic health.
The researchers looked at these 10 foods:
Salt
Processed meats
Seafood omega-3 fats
Vegetables
Fruits
Polyunsaturated fats
Unprocessed red meats
The largest number of heart disease deaths was associated with high intake of processed meats and sugar-sweetened beverages and low intake of nuts.
High stroke risk was associated with a diet low in fruits and vegetables and high in salt.
Increased risk of death from diabetes was associated with consuming more processed meats and sugar-sweetened drinks, and not enough whole grains. The food linked to the most deaths overall was salt.
The study illustrates the fact that your food choices can have a profound impact on your healt Continue reading

8 Warning Signs of Uncontrolled Diabetes

Controlling your blood glucose levels isn’t always easy. However, it’s also the key to staying healthy and avoiding long-term complications from diabetes. So, it’s important that you have a solid understanding of your condition. Equally important is that you have established, with the help of your physicians, a management plan that suits you and your lifestyle.
Having a diabetes management plan that truly works for you is the best way you can prevent dangerous spikes and crashes, which wreak havoc on your blood vessels over time, causing the unpleasant, painful, and sometimes debilitating complications you’re trying to avoid.
While testing is, of course, an excellent indicator of how well your management plan is working, it’s also important that you have an idea of what uncontrolled blood glucose levels look like over time.
Paying attention to the signs your body is giving you can clue you into a potential problem early on. Knowing how to spot these indicators can help you make the necessary adjustments to get things where they should be, and hopefully prevent long-term damage.
Let’s take a look at the signs of uncontrolled blood glucose levels.
1. Bowel and Urinary tract problems
Nerve damage caused by uncontrolled diabetes can result in a variety of uncomfortable issues. People with diabetes have an increased risk of developing gastroparesis, urinary tract and bladder infections, and suffering from incontinence, constipation, and diarrehea.
2. Fatigue
Insulin resistance is a common culprit for chronic fatigue. If your cells are resisting the glucose (energy) y Continue reading

Can an online game really improve blood sugar control for people with diabetes?

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When it comes to serious health problems, you might think a game would be unlikely to help. But a recent study of people with diabetes could change your mind.
Researchers publishing in the September 2017 issue of Diabetes Care describe a study in which people with diabetes joined a competitive online game aimed at educating participants about ways to improve blood sugar control. The results were encouraging.
How a game led to improved blood sugars
In this new research, 456 patients with poorly controlled diabetes were randomly assigned to one of two groups:
Group 1 participated in an online or phone-based educational game that asked two questions about managing diabetes each week for six months. Later, answers and explanations were provided. This group also received a booklet about civics, including questions about citizenship in the US.*
Group 2 received online or phone-based questions about civics each week for six months along with a booklet about diabetes self-management.*
(*The researchers wanted to have a control group that was just like the diabetes management game group, except instead of diabetes information they provided information on civics. Both groups got a civics lesson and diabetes information; the only difference was how that information was delivered. That way investigators could say with more confidence it was the game that improved blood sugars.)
Each participant was assigned to a team. Points were awarded for correct answers, and scores were posted so other participants could compare team and individual performance (wi Continue reading