Parenting (Children) | Page 11 of 15

Kids First Diabetes Second: Enjoying Summer with Diabetes

I like to pack a couple of water bottles that we can refill throughout the day to stay hydrated. Remember, there is a lot of blacktop at amusement parks, which turns up the heat! Pack enough food to cover regular snack times, plus a few extras in case you need them to recover from lows. I also pack a few extras for other family members. Applesauce pouches and organic fruit strips hold up well in a backpack or cooler.

What I Wish I’d Known When my Child was Diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes

Don’t talk A1C’s with your kids. Ever. Listen, before diabetes, did you take the lab sheet from your child’s annual physical and show them things on it and celebrate numbers? Of course not. A young child does not even need to know what an A1C is, never mind the result of one. I wish I’d known this.

Pumps vs Injections: An Excerpt From “Raising Teens with Diabetes”

Pumping insulin can offer a person with diabetes more freedom, more precision, and less stress on a management basis. But they can be tricky, too: pumps need to be paid attention to quite closely. So what are the benefits of pumping, and what are the benefits of MDI? Both offer their own, and while many like to claim pumping is the only right choice, in reality, with the many types of insulin available today, the decision of pump versus MDI is mostly a personal one.

Children With Diabetes Friends for Life 2014: A Wrap-Up

It was midway into a parents’ session on positive caregiving at the annual Children with Diabetes Friends for Life conference in Orlando, and a mother in the corner of the room was crying. Feeling alone and overwhelmed by the new task of raising a toddler with Type 1 Diabetes, her emotions overflowed.

How Our Daughter’s Type 1 Diabetes Diagnosis Changed her Life—And Ours

Even though Bisi can live a long, healthy life, I feel terribly sad for her, and for us. Sad that she will need tens (hundreds?) of thousands of blood tests and injections; sad that what she can eat and how she lives is so much more regimented and restricted than it was before; that she faces health consequences and worries that a six year old shouldn’t have to know about or think about. And I feel sad, even though she is a girl who takes an enormous amount of pleasure out of life, that she knows her life is shadowed by this.

Diabetes Camp: Why It’s Really Good for Parents

It’s important for parents to make a list for themselves and the rest of their family and then stick to it during diabetes camp weeks. It’s just too easy for diabetes to remain front and center in our lives, even when our kids are away. A little work at tucking it away isn’t just not selfish, it might just be semi selfless, since it makes us both physically and emotionally stronger, and helps bolster the entire family.

Should I Screen My Child for Type 1 Diabetes and Celiac Disease?

Many parents I know with diabetes themselves, or who have one child with diabetes, occasionally check the blood sugar level of a particularly thirsty non-diabetic toddler or a seems-sleepier-than-usual non-diabetic sibling. But there is no palm reading for as-of-yet unpricked fingers. I can’t sit around worrying for what may or may not happen. I am sure I will see the symptoms if they appear. I’m sure I’m equipped to handle a diagnosis. Why put myself or my kid through unnecessary worry, stress, or pain?

From Burned Out Teen to Healthy College Grad: Ways to Help your Child with Type 1 Diabetes

Her adult endo introduced her to the “What About Bob” method (I call it that – not him!): baby steps. Clearly, she wasn’t heading off to college with an ideal daily plan. So, he suggested taking little steps she was willing to try. He opened her up to a world where “success” wasn’t seemingly unreachable; where she didn’t have a million chances a day to “fail.” From that came a new sense of being “good” about her diabetes.

The Three Year Diabetes Honeymoon – Part 2

When I called his doctors and told them he hadn’t been taking insulin for a couple of weeks, they said, give him a half unit of Lantus anyway, because it is very important for him psychologically. He is only five years old, the honeymoon will last probably only a couple of weeks, they told me, and for him it will be very hard emotionally to get back on insulin.

The Three Year Diabetes Honeymoon

My husband found a case study about a boy diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in Denmark who had gone on a gluten-free diet after diagnosis and, sixteen months in, had an A1C of below six percent, with no daily insulin therapy.