by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on March 15, 2012
In the following blog, a young woman shares what it’s like to live with endometriosis, a painful condition that occurs when tissue similar to the inside lining of the uterus is found outside of its normal location.
I remember when I first started having pain. I was 14 years old and told my mom about a constant pain in my side. She brushed off my comment and gave me some Advil thinking it would help. After a while the pain just never subsided so I told her I needed to see the doctor. After a number of tests, hospitalizations, surgery, and a year of searching for “what was wrong”, it was confirmed that I had endometriosis.
Even though the process of figuring out “what was wrong” had concluded, my pain was still present. It did subside a bit after going on birth control pills and other pain alleviating remedies, but every now and then there would be moments of unbearable pain. My parents and friends would comment and say things to me like “You must be feeling so much better, or “I’m so glad you’re in less pain, the surgery and medicine really must have been what you needed”. Little did they know that endo is not like a cold that goes away after a few days. Full story »
by Tripp Underwood on October 26, 2011
How accessible are the medications in your house?
A new survey shows that as many as one in seven Massachusetts parents have given their kids prescription painkillers that weren’t prescribed to them. Considering how dangerous a practice this is, those numbers are pretty shocking. Remember waiting in line for coffee this morning? If this survey is accurate then at least one of the people in front of you may have risked their child’s life to alleviate discomfort.
“There’s no question that in some cases this type of behavior could be fatal,” says Lois Lee, MD, MPH, an emergency medicine physician at Children’s Hospital Boston. “Any time you give adult strength medication to a child you increase the chance of an unintentional overdose.”
Taking prescription medication without a doctor’s approval is dangerous for anyone, but the risks are far greater for children. The dosage of most painkillers are based on the size of the patient, so what’s considered a mild painkiller for a full grown adult can have a much more pronounced effect on a child. Full story »
by Andrea Mooney on October 3, 2011
The Packards
The Packards gather around the boulder in their backyard to pose for the picture. Katie passes her bright pink crutches to her mother, and although she needs them to get many places in her life—from school to hip-hop dance class, she’s able to lean against this rock without them.
The photos go well, of course, because the Packard family—mom Cara, dad Brian, brothers Dan and Kevin and sister Laura—is so tightly knit. They’ve come together in ways small and large to help Katie navigate life with spina bifida, a complex birth defect that affects the development of a child’s spinal cord, spine and brain.
But once the photo shoot is over, the rest of the family scatters across the backyard while Katie is still leaning.
“Mom,” she calls, “can you hand me my crutches?”
There she is, a 12-year-old girl, balanced precariously on the edge of the rock, stuck between childhood and adolescence, independence and dependence—between the desire for a regular life and the reality that there are simply things her body can’t do. Full story »
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on September 19, 2011
When teenagers stonewall adults, there can be many issues leading to the behavior
By Sarah Teasdale, MD, EdM pediatric hospitalist at Children’s Hospital Boston
It was near midnight about a year ago when I noticed a gaunt young man in his early twenties walking toward me in the Emergency Department. It was a young man who, about a decade earlier, had threatened to kill me.
For nearly ten years prior to becoming a physician I was a high school teacher. That particular July, I was teaching English in summer school for students who had failed the class during the regular school year. It was a group of 15 surly teenagers ages 14 to 19, beaten down by a system in which they could not—or chose not—to succeed.
The young man—I’ll call him Andre—was my student that summer. He was a gangly, thin 15-year-old who often wore the same ill-fitting clothes day after day, rarely made eye contact and showed a level of fatigue in the early morning that was extreme, even for a teenager. Whenever I tried to talk to him, he would simply say he was “a’right.” He meant: Stop asking.
So I stopped asking. In doing so, I lost a chance to help him. Full story »
by Tripp Underwood on August 25, 2011
Have you heard about the new kids’ book, “Maggie Goes on a Diet”? It’s basically a retelling of the age-old ugly ducking fable, but with a modern twist. In this reenactment, the duckling is a 14-year-old girl who goes on a diet, and with a little hard work goes from being an overweight, self-conscious kid to a star soccer player and the most popular girl in school.
The book may stress the importance of healthful eating and exercise, but many people are finding fault with the author’s emphasis on the thin = happy storyline, instead of focusing on the importance of health.
Among the critics is our own Dr. Claire, who was on New England Cable News this morning to talk about Maggie, childhood obesity and how to send kids the right message about health and weight.
Full story »
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on August 17, 2011
Written by Kitty O’Hare, MD, coordinator of Transition Medicine at Martha Eliot Health Center
It’s late summer and the back-to-school sales dominate the stores. In my office there is a sudden flurry of activity from students hurrying to get sports physicals and vaccines before heading off to college. Everyone is nervous about their new roommates, their class schedules and whether they will be homesick. But for some of my patients, going to college is especially nerve-wracking because it will be their first time living away from home with a chronic disease. Full story »
by Andrea Mooney on August 12, 2011
Is a vegetarian diet enough to sustain growing teenagers?
“Please pass the vegetables!” may be a scarcely-heard phrase from kids sitting around the dinner table, but the sentiment is becoming more common as adolescents and teens explore vegetarianism.
While very recent and consistent data on the number of vegetarians in the United States is hard to come by, it’s generally estimated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that one in 200 American children under 18 is a vegetarian (that number reflects mostly teenagers, who have more control over their diets). This increase begs the questions: What does this mean for young vegetarians’ overall health? And how does it impact family life?
Understandably, parents may fear that it’s harder for vegetarian kids to eat a balanced diet and fit in socially. Some vegetarians replace meat with unhealthful sweets and carbohydrates, rather than vegetables and plant-based proteins, and there are news stories about high school vegetarians being teased for their different eating habits. Full story »
by Andrea Mooney on August 3, 2011
Tragic stories of teens being bullied and ostracized at school have been saturating media headlines. But while these tales are making news, there’s another story to be told: that of homosexual teens’ estrangement—even banishment—from their families.
According to the recent Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (YRBS), one in four teens who identify themselves as lesbian or gay are homeless, and a study in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) says that it’s more likely that these teens are being driven out of their homes by their parents. Supporting this are findings from studies of homeless youth living apart from their families. One such study shows that 73 percent of homeless gay and lesbian teens indicated that they were homeless because their parents disapproved of their sexual orientation. Full story »
