Diabetes Through the Looking GlassIn my post about Joe’s Rough Guide to Diabetes I referenced an article which appeared in The Times.

While the intro was about a young guy who’s written the above book about his life since age 13 with diabetes, the lower part of the article goes into more detail about children with T1 and their parents. An excerpt from the article:

As a specialist paediatric registrar at the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, 33-year-old Rachel Besser can be more direct. What she tells patients is tempered by her experience of living with type 1 since she was 9. She is also acutely aware of the effect that diagnosis of a child’s diabetes has on parents, and has written a book to address their concerns.

“Parents often blame themselves,” she says. “They ask what they could have done differently, they feel powerless to help and grieve for the loss of their healthy child. I’ve seen parents who worry all the time. When a parent feels that anxious it’s a big burden for the child, who can feel that it’s his fault his parents are upset.”

Rachel is grateful that her parents encouraged her to be independent. For young people with type 1, the greatest difficulties can lie not in their condition but in other people’s responses, she says, and parents can help by allowing their children to lead normal lives. “Stable children come from stable parents. A teenager’s instinct is to make diabetes as small a part of their life as possible and if you have a parent asking all the time, ‘How are your blood sugars?’ you feel like you’re a number — and that if it’s a high number you’re imperfect, a failure. Ideally an anxious parent will find someone to talk to.”

I was interested to see that Rachel Besser has written a book – Diabetes Through the Looking Glass: A Book for Parents of Children with Diabetes which was only published last year in July. There’s a 13-page preview of the book here and it looks like it could be a good one for any of you parents out there with T1 kids. You can get it from either of these websites:

Class UK – GBP 17.99

Amazon – US $28.73

While it’s billed as a book for parents to understand their kids with T1, just from looking at the excerpt I can see that some of the information is actually brilliantly laid out for all of us, even those of us who’ve had T1 for a long time. For example the paragraph about hypos is one of the best explanations of what actually happens physiologically that I’ve come across:

Hypoglycaemia results from an imbalance between insulin, food and exercise. Too much insulin or exercise in proportion to too little glucosecontaining food will cause hypoglycaemia (hypo). Exercise such as sport can cause hypos up to 1–2 days later. Your diabetes team will help find ways of dealing with exercise that suits your child, such as by eating a snack before exercise and/or reducing the insulin dose. Exercise is discussed in more detail in Chapter 3.

The symptoms of hypoglycaemia arise for two reasons. The first is the effect of the body’s response to stop or reverse the hypo from happening. Hormones, the body’s chemical messengers, are released into the bloodstream to try to raise the blood glucose. This is called a counter-regulatory response and in those without diabetes, would normally cause symptoms at a blood glucose level of around 3.0 mmol/l. However, in those with diabetes, this will depend on what the blood glucose normally runs at, any recent low or high blood glucose, exercise, sleep and age. The first hormone released is adrenaline; this produces symptoms such as a fast pounding pulse rate, feeling shaky, sick and sweaty. Adrenaline is normally released to allow the body to respond well to stress – that is why the early hypo symptoms may feel like stress or anxiety. The hormone glucagon is also released to cause a more sustained rise in blood glucose. Glucagon works by breaking down glycogen stores from the liver. This makes people more prone to hypos during the day after a severe hypo as the glycogen stores may be empty.

Parents of children with Type 1 diabetes are given supplies of an artificial form of the hormone glucagon for emergency use (see p. 30). The other cause of hypo symptoms is due to the direct effect of low blood glucose in the brain. In those without diabetes these effects tend to occur at a blood glucose level of around 2.5 mmol/l. The brain, like any other part of the body, needs glucose as an energy supply and if blood glucose levels are low the brain will not work properly. This may cause difficulty in concentrating and hearing, headaches, confusion, drowsiness, blurred vision and slurred speech. The body will try to stop the fall in blood glucose but if the levels are dangerously low and a hypo is untreated a person with diabetes may fall unconscious and even have a fit.

Competition

Rachel Besser’s publisher, Class Health have provided me with a copy of Diabetes Through the Looking Glass: A Book for Parents of Children with Diabetes to give away. I’d like to give this to people who genuinely have children with diabetes. To enter, please leave a comment below about what you think has been the biggest challenge of having a child with T1. No need to leave any contact details as your email address will show in my system when you leave the comment. [Sorry overseas readers, this competition is only open to New Zealand residents].

All commenters present by 5pm on Tuesday 2 February 2010 will go into the draw to win the book. I’ll announce the winner on Wednesday 3 February. GOOD LUCK!


By Nic on 26 January 2010 at 6.56 am
Posted in Community, Hypos & Hypers, Kids & Teens
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