Making health social: Friends and family as part of the health care team

Follow me on Twitter @DavidAScales “We’ll stop by McDonald’s once I get out of the hospital,” Arturo told his brother. Arturo (not his real name), was 21 years old and had just been diagnosed with diabetes. He and his brother loved fast food, McDonald’s being one of their most frequent haunts. Unfortunately, this new diagnosis was likely to change that. This was Arturo’s first health problem, ever. He had a few days of being extremely thirsty but needing to urinate every hour or two. Then, for about a day he couldn’t keep anything down. Vomiting, his belly aching, he came into the ER with his brother. I admitted him to the intensive care unit for a dangerous condition called ketoacidosis. Without insulin, his cells couldn’t absorb glucose, leading to a paradoxical situation — his cells were starving for sugar despite high levels of glucose in his blood. To compensate, his cells were making acid, a life-threatening condition if left untreated. Now that he was in the hospital, the medical aspects of Arturo’s case were clear. There are textbook guidelines on what type of IV fluids he needed, how often to check his blood, and how much insulin to give him to safely transition his blood from acidic back to normal. But the most challenging aspect of diabetes is the care that comes later. It’s tough for anyone who was never concerned about their health to monitor what they eat, check their blood sugar multiple times a day, and give themselves injections of insul...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Behavioral Health Caregiving Health care Managing your health care Prevention Source Type: blogs