Are Your Kids Safe at School?

About 215,000 school-aged children and adolescents have diabetes and the numbers keep increasing each year with more new cases of diabetes being diagnosed in young people. Diabetes is a serious chronic disease that must be managed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In a supportive environment, where school personnel understand the needs of students with diabetes and can respond appropriately in emergency situations, young people can manage their diabetes effectively.

Unfortunately, with school budgets being cut every time we turn around, nurses’ presence seem to be viewed as a luxury rather than a necessity in schools. More and more school nurses must cover more than one campus, working rotations. What does this mean for a child with diabetes?  A lot less medical care.

Many stories are currently being shared about the role of schools and teachers in a diabetic child’s life.  A parent cannot be around 24/7 at school to care for their child’s condition.  Therefore the school nurse and teachers become the primary caregiver during school hours. Unfortunately, teachers lack training and education on diabetes, leaving them unable to assist students.

We spoke with DxONE creator, Dan Masucci, who was all too familiar with the struggles parents of children with type 1 diabetes face.  He, like many other D-parents, has had to drop everything and rush to school to care for his T1 son, Nick, when the nurse is absent.  Dan also worries about his son during school lockdowns.  “Nick only carries one vial of insulin in his backpack, the rest is kept in a fridge in the nurses office.  Sometimes these lockdowns last for multiple hours, and the kids are not allowed to leave wherever they are when the lockdown commences,” Dan says.  He worries about what Nick would do if he were to run out of insulin.

Without the guarantee of medical staff, it is imperative that parents encourage their children to take an active role in their diabetes management and be prepared for emergencies. Here are some steps your child can take to make this process easier:

• Find out who is on the school health team. Know how to contact them if you need help.
• Always wear a medical alert ID. Keep a Diabetes ID Card in your backpack or book bag. Order a FREE one here.
• Always carry a quick-acting source of glucose as recommended by your health care team.
• Tell your teacher if you feel symptoms of low or high blood glucose, especially if you need help.
• Carry your diabetes equipment and supplies with you at all times. ClimaPak is a great way to store insulin safely at school. It will fit in any backpack and the charge lasts for 3-5 days. Click  here for more information.
• Take charge of your diabetes care at school, as allowed in your health care and education plans. You may be responsible for these diabetes care tasks:
  • Checking and writing down blood glucose levels.
  • Figuring out the correct insulin dose you need.
  • Giving yourself insulin.
  • Discarding your syringes and lancets in a proper container or taking them home with you according to your written care plans.
  • Throwing away needles, lancets, and other supplies you have used in a safe place.
  • Eating meals and snacks as planned.
  • Figuring out the carbohydrate (carb) content of food.
  • Treating low blood glucose with a quick-acting glucose product.

The American Diabetes Association is calling for an increase in diabetes education to all educators and school employees. Parents should not have to leave their jobs multiple times a week to ensure that their children are getting the proper medical care at school.

As children go back to school, it’s important to have a checklist in case of emergencies at school. Here is the American Diabetes Association’s “Back-to-School-Checklist” for parents.

As the number of students diagnosed with diabetes increases each year, school personnel, parents, and students face unique challenges. Collaboration and coordination are essential to ensure a safe learning environment and equal access to educational opportunities for students with diabetes.

To help meet these challenges, the National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP) has released an updated version of Helping the Student with Diabetes Succeed: A Guide for School Personnel. Developed with and supported by leading diabetes, pediatric medicine, health care professional, and education groups, the School Guide:

• Provides school personnel, parents, and students with a coordinated team approach for helping students manage their diabetes effectively in the school setting
• Contains user-friendly tools, copier-ready action plans, a diabetes primer and glossary, and a review of school responsibilities under federal laws

The guide contains new and revised information on:

• Strategies for effective diabetes management for children and adolescents with type 1 and type 2 diabetes
• Stages of child development and students’ corresponding abilities to perform diabetes care tasks
• Diabetes management training for school personnel using a three-tiered approach
• Commonly used diabetes supplies for blood glucose monitoring and administering insulin
• Step-by-step instructions for carb counting and computing insulin doses

This FREE resource can be ordered or downloaded by visiting www.YourDiabetesInfo.org/media/Youth_NDEPSchoolGuide.pdf or calling 1-888-693-NDEP (1-888-693-6337).

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Free Diabetes Health Screenings

Be sure to spread the word… Sam’s Club Pharmacy locations are offering free diabetes and vision screenings for members and the public on Saturday, Sept. 8 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 1.9 million new cases of diabetes are diagnosed each year, and the disease is the leading cause of new cases of blindness in adults in the U.S. If trends continue, 1 out of 3 U.S. adults will have diabetes by 2050.

As diabetes diagnoses continue to rise, a simple screening can help more Americans proactively manage their health. Sam’s Club’s free diabetes screenings are valued at more than $150 and include:

• Glucose tests
• A1C tests (blood test for diagnosed diabetics that measures blood sugar)
• Vision tests*
• Blood pressure and BMI (body mass index) tests

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Managing Diabetes With An Active Lifestyle: Join In!

Exercise is seriously important for people and especially if you have been diagnosed with diabetes, a silent killer. The benefits derived from regular exercise in unaffected individuals are well known but have you realized the many health benefits received by those with diabetes? This particular metabolic disorder can lead to horrendous results, if kept unchecked. Therefore, for maintenance of normal blood sugar levels and optimal cardiovascular lung functions etc, an exercise routine is vital.

All diabetics who have included this healthy habit as a part of their daily lives experience a noticeable spruce in energy levels and have more steady control over their weight. This all leads to elimination and reduction in intensity of many of the possible complications associated with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. To burn calories and to regulate the level of glucose in your blood stream that in turn works on the sensitivity of insulin, exercise is highly recommended.

How Exercise Impacts Blood Sugar Levels

During and even after any exercise session, the body utilizes quite a lot of energy. Consequently, blood sugar levels are diminished during exercise and need to be replenished. This is one of the key reasons why various exercise forms are recommended to those suffering from diabetes, especially in case of type 2. Medication, proper diet plan and the willpower to stick to the fitness regime can make a tremendous difference.

Which Type of Physical Activity is Best For Diabetics?

As a matter of fact, any physical activity that has the ability to raise the heart rate for approximately twenty to thirty minutes, and is done routinely, will lead to health improvement. Brisk walking is perhaps the most convenient and safe for most diabetics, at least starting out. Plus, it requires no special equipment. Other activities that are equally effective include swimming, dancing, a long session of gardening, stationary bicycle riding and so on. There are plenty of exercises that can be done without hitting the gym!

According to several studies, aerobics is an exercise that proves quite helpful in maintaining good health. Patients with type 1 diabetes will notice a marked difference in their cholesterol level and blood pressure too. Besides that, resistance training has potential to strengthen your heart muscle and burn unhealthy fat. Certain flexibility exercise such as Pilates and yoga make use of stretching and core muscles that are beneficial as well. Take note: Always warm up prior to exercise.

However, regardless of the type of exercise, a diabetic must address a few special needs before initiating any type of exercise program. Here are a few examples:

Always consult your doctor before exercising. Give details regarding the type, frequency, duration and intensity of the physical activity. Some of the exercises must be avoided and your physician will inform you about them. Also, get information on how to avoid injuring your legs and feet. Lastly, you must always carry some form of carbohydrate that gets quickly absorbed by the body. Take for example- a snack bar or orange juice.

Follow the above-mentioned tips and exercise options for a longer and better quality of life.

Plus, What Better Way to Kick-off an Exercise Program Than With the The Big Blue Test?!

The Big Blue Test - Video Intro

The Big Blue Test is a program of the Diabetes Hands Foundation that encourages people with diabetes to test their blood sugar, exercise for 14-20 minutes, test again and share their experience on BigBlueTest.org. For every test, people with diabetes in need receive life-saving supplies through Big Blue Test grants that are awarded to humanitarian diabetes charities in the US and around the world, made possible thanks to the program sponsor.

Be part of the 20,000 people who will do the Big Blue Test this year. Help yourself and help others. Get active, join the movement at BigBlueTest.org.

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Kewl Innovations, Inc.™ is pleased to announce the launch of our brand new website – www.KewlInnovations.com. The site is the result of months of synchronized hard work by our team and über-talented JBL Design.

Kewl Innovations has developed a portable device that monitors and moderates the temperature of one’s personal insulin supply for 3-5 days on a single charge. Utilizing nanotechnology and advanced monitoring software, the device eliminates the need for ice or gel packs and requires no effort from the user, other than a routine re-charge.

On our home page, we depict product use scenarios encompassing business and leisure travel, outdoor activities, extreme athletes, commuting, climate variations and juvenile diabetic excursions – just a few situations in which the Kewl device enables people with diabetes to be on-the-go without restrictions. Here you can view product information, FAQs and even preorder a Kewl device. The decision is simple – see how Kewl puts you in control of your medication management.

In addition to the site’s informative content, the design is developed in a way so as to provide an excellent user experience. Our goal is to provide our visitors with a captivating understanding of the latest developments in medication management and best practices in traveling with diabetes. While we currently offer a number of resources, we continually strive to add more information to update you with the latest research through our ongoing list of videos, articles and links.

Stay current with the latest in our product updates and industry practices by signing up for our “Kewl Innovations eNews”.

We hope that you enjoy discovering the new website and that you find it easy to navigate and pleasant to use.

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Okay, I’m sitting here in the Kewl Innovations office with a head phone in one ear (listening to the local radio weather reports) and a radar screen pulled up on my browser.  I must inform you, that being a native Rhode Islander, the whole tornado thing are still pretty new (and scary) to me.  Justifiably… considering that a funnel could shoot down on a whim and rip around as it wills.

Thankfully, it looks like we are sitting a sliver of the DFW area just between the most severe parts of today’s storms.  Our neighboring communities haven’t been as fortunate though.  As of 2pm today, Oncor, local electricity provider, released a figure of 28,000 DFW homes having lost power and that number continues to grow.

Most of the time I try to figure out how folks with diabetes can make use of our device in their average, everyday lives.  However, today’s storms have served as an abrupt reminder of a far more sobering use-case.  Emergency situations pose a very real threat to people with diabetes.  Losing power, or access to ones management supplies, could mean serious repercussions.  It’s hard enough trying to get this blog post written in the midst of today’s chaos… I can’t image trying to prepare for the possibility of managing diabetes in the middle of an emergency or disaster.

While I hope people think of our device as WAY more than an  ’emergency shelter for insulin’, in the right scenario, a scenario like far too many of our neighbors are facing today,  it will be just that.

Stay safe Texans!

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