Allies Voice: Back to School Diabetes and Bullies
So here's my beef for the month of September. Now that school's back in session, I've been contacted by many parents concerned for their child's s diabetes while at school. When I was in grade school I had to go to the nurse's office if I felt low. No questions asked. No testing. She gave me a cup of juice. I sat for 15 and then went back to class. Nowadays, the parents I've heard from say that their school district insist their kid go to the nurses office to check their glucose. Here's the problem. Hypoglycemia is not a number. It is a sequence of events that collaboratively shut-down cognitive functions as the glucose levels drop. Since I'm obsessed with everything diabetes - I wondered how I could explain the seriousness of a low blood sugar to the world. I'll start with the physiology of the brain. Then I'll explain how there are relative glucose levels - and how your mileage may vary..
The outer brain, or cortex, controls rational thought and intelligence. If you need to confirm how this works - ask a loved one to throw Jeopardy questions at you next time you're going low. I've forgotten my cell number while going low. The midbrain, known as the limbic system, regulates the emotions and memories. I ordered an exotic dish for dinner my parents knew I would never eat. Low and behold, I was low. When dinner arrived I asked "what's this?" I cannot believe they didn't stop me! Apparently even your loved ones don't want to intervene when you're low. Then we have a deep inner core, located at the final bulb where the spinal cord enters the brain. A physiologist called this area "the reptilian brain". This is where our instincts for physical survival stem - territoriality, mating and reward-seeking. When you get a physically thrashing low - as in an "altercation" - it's a bad low. Fight of flight!
In reverse order is how our brain is fueled: physical survival first, emotions and memory second, and then rational thought and intelligence. I feel smarter when I'm higher. There seems to be some geographical proof to that sentiment. When you start experiencing a "hypo" (hypoglycemia - glucose falling), you will feel a cascade of symptoms starting with: loss of rational thought and intelligence, followed by emotional disconnect possibly catatonic behavior, and then physical assertion for survival or passing out. I don't want to mention the obvious - but the late stages of hypoglycemia are deadly.
So I ask - why are these kids being put on trial to confirm their sugar is low? A sugar can be low at 150, relative to where your started the day. Nary will a number in the nurse's office confirm your sugar is low. You feel it because your "outer brain" starts to malfunction. You cannot think clearly. You start realizing something is going wrong. By the time your limbic system is sending signals: your heart is racing, your eyes are blurring. You are becoming disoriented. You know you are low!! Give the kid a break. These symptoms are unmistakable and unforgivable. Don't send a hypoglycemic child foraging down the halls to the nurse's office for validation. Let them keep their meter and snacks in the classroom!!!
Is your district policy really that callous that you are unwilling to accommodate a child with diabetes? This policy is blatant discrimination and segregation. Do you really want to instill a feeling of social disconnect for a young, impressionable kid? Life is tough enough. Please don't make school a place of shame for young people with diabetes.
I was not diagnosed until middle age (T2), but as a child, we had to raise our hands and wait to be recognized before we could get permission to leave the room for *any* reason. Has discipline become that lax (for all students) -- or is there an exception for students with diabetes?
The issues with meters in the classroom are (1) lancets (sharp things that can be used as weapons against other students, or that other students can get their hands on to attack the student with diabetes), (2) for insurance and anti-drug-abuse reasons, all medical procedures (and glucose monitoring is considered a medical procedure) must be administered by the school nurse (in many districts, high school students have been expelled for carrying aspirin or their own prescription drugs), and (3) some students get their jollies by stealing (or hiding) other students' belongings, particularly those of medical importance. (I can't tell you how many times my mother had to come to my gradeschool because some jerk took my orthopaedic shoes and did anything from hiding them in the auditorium to throwing them in a covered trash can.)
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Allie,
Sadly these tales being relayed to you by concerned parents are not about understanding the needs of youngster(s) with a chronic disease—a disease that can quickly turn from ‘serious’ to ‘deadly.’ These tales describe a hidden ‘agenda’ called CONTROL.
Parents are being told by school officials, “we can’t have a youngster keep food in his desk; other kids will want to do that, too.” We can’t allow a desk/backpack to contain needles, meters, or contaminated biologics—other children might get “infected.” Ultimately, we (school authorities) want to take every square peg, and hew off the rough edges to make it fit neatly in the round hold labeled ‘convention.’ If the effort is challenged, authorities have been empowered to embarrass a child into submission.
Most school nurses are not well-enough equipped nor well-enough educated to adequately be responsible for the care of a diabetic youngster. (How many school nurses are diabetic, or actually care for his/her own diabetic youngster? If not—‘nuff said!) What you are describing is a “program” that is shaped and guided by the so-called experts—educators associated with the ADA or JDRF. I imagine most of them possess any but the most rudimentary skills of diabetes management; their “coordination” of diabetes treatment is circumscribed by rigid guidelines constructed by so-called experts. How are these school nurses trained to handle the individuality of each diabetic youngster—individuality that demands something other than mere “numbers.”
I’ve wondered how I made it through middle school, high school, college and 5 years of grad school without a meter, a pump, an on-call nurse. I never suffered an episode that I would consider emergency in nature. Could it be that my insulins were better in the 1950s and 1960; possibly my doctors understood the disease better, and strove to educate me more completely, so I could be my own best advocate.
Today’s diabetics are being raised to be totally DEPENDENT on technology. What is even worse—society (insurance company, doctors, the medical system and medical schools) is endeavoring to make them (us) MORE, not less, subservient.
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Fortunately I went to school in the days before diabetes had come under control of the profoundly uneducated public, which includes many nurses, diabetes educators, and doctors, unfortunately. Since in those early days it was considered impolite to talk of or refer to anyone's medical condition, and since very little was known about diabetes among the public, I could enjoy the anonymity of counting as a perfectly normal child in school. Only a very few of my friends knew I was diabetic, and not only did 98% of the school children not know I was any different from them, even the school officials did not know! It was a delightfully autonomous, untroubled existence for me compared to the public shaming and hamfisted discipline school kids with diabetes have to endure today.
Since then diabetes was controlled only by having to take one injection of a mix of long- and short-acting insulins first thing in the morning, and eating meals on time and without sweets during the rest of the day, I simply fit into the school program invisibly. On the few occasions when I became hypoglycemic during school hours, I just discreetly consumed some sugar packets I always kept in my pocket, and no one noticed. The whole tyranny of 'strict control' was not yet in power, so severe hypoglycemia, repeated testing, and constant insulin injecting simply did not exist. All told, my quality of life, a vital component in the measure of successful treatment outcomes in any disease BUT diabetes, was about 10 times higher than it has been under the strict control mania.
Since there are so many adjustments school officials have to make today to accommodate students with allergies, asthma, ADD, hyperactivity disorder, etc., I wonder why they are not equally prepared to smoothe the adjustment of diabetic students to their regimen? Since in Canada Sikh students are allowed to carry to class a 6-inch knife, the Kirpan, for religious reasons, I can't see how diabetics can be forbidden to have their syringes with them.
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Sanktpauli:
From past comments you have made I would make a guess you are/or used to reside in Canada. What is your opinion/thoughts of the Benofotiamine manufactured by aor.ca.
Thanks for the past insights and experiences you have shared.
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Stupid, ignorant Shitheads.....who base their ignorance on T1DM as the policy for the School Board. Maybe they got their education on T1DM from the ADA rather than the student or parents of the students with Diabetes.
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This is what I "fought" about with my son's elementary school about 6 years ago. With regards to their "sharps" excuse...well then you better take all pencils, staplers, compasses, etc. out of the classrooms too. I can't rehash it all right now but the bottom line is they (school system) works for you, through taxes. Do not let them push you around or your child. That's how I eventually looked at it and then I walked into his school one day and said "this is the way it's going to be from now on". I handed a letter over that I wrote outlining the way it was going to be. I did not get any argument after that and my son had no interference with managing his disease at school any more. P.S. The CDA (like the ADA) and JDRF were no help whatsoever!
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I agree with CureType1, the ONLY way to deal with this is to say, "look, this is the way its going to be ... you don't tell kids with wheelchairs they need to go to the nurse's office to use their wheelchair, and my kid will be able to test (and inject insulin, if need be) anywhere they happen to be. If you don't like it, then you'll have to give them carte blanche ability to leave without permission anytime they feel is necessary."
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(A) Injecting insulin is so rarely [if ever] an emergency requirement as to render it relatively safe to entirely avoid any needles in the classroom. The great danger is NOT hyperglycemia but it IS dehydration and/or HYPOglycemia [treatable with a liter of water and/or an orange (or honey rubbed inside the mouth if fainted)] ...
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www.relative-HYPOglycemia.cOM
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www.intermittent-FASTing.cOM
(C) FUEL anemia?
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www.Olivia-Raby.cOM
...Warm thanks & Adrenalin Love
Nick Gracey, BSc(Hons) Medical Biochemistry, Birmingham University, UK, WATerian (C) SUN.21.SEP.2008 @ 18:45hrs c/o www.LIFE2345.cOM
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Hi Allie,
Regarding the diabetes/autoimmune/leaky gut connection.......it is real and genetically determined by HLA dq2 or dq8 types.......and gluten is the trigger...zonulin is released and the tight junctions in the gut becomes leaky to food proteins which trigger autoimmune reactions...........
See article below
Gluten-dependent diabetes-related and thyroid-related autoantibodies in patients with celiac disease.
Clinical and Laboratory Observations
Journal of Pediatrics. 137(2):263-265, August 2000.
Ventura, Alessandro MD; Neri, Elena MD; Ughi, Claudio MD; Leopaldi, Agnese; Citta, Angello; Not, Tarcisio MD
Abstract:
Patients with celiac disease are at high risk of having autoimmune disorders. Moreover, untreated patients with celiac disease have been found to have a higher than expected prevalence of organ-specific autoantibodies. In a prospective study of 90 patients with celiac disease, we found that the prevalence of diabetes and thyroid-related serum antibodies was 11.1% and 14.4%, respectively. Like antiendomysium autoantibodies, these organ-specific antibodies seem to be gluten-dependent and tend to disappear during a gluten-free diet. (J Pediatr 2000;137:263-5)
(C) Mosby-Year Book Inc. 2000. All Rights Reserved.
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