Diabulimia October 28, 2008

     This week’s health alert focuses on a dangerous diet among young diabetic girls.  It doesn’t have an official name, the slang term being used for it is diabulimia (diabetes + bulimia).  What these girls do is binge eat, consuming several thousand calories in one sitting, and then purposely don’t take the insulin to cover it.  That keeps their bodies from absorbing the sugar (honestly, they urinate it all out) and they lose weight.  Some of them several pounds overnight.  And doing this over a long period of time is extremely dangerous.  The lack of insulin will cause keotacidosis, an overacidity of the blood, and the girl will become ill and possibly die. The young woman we spoke with has suffered kidney malfunction and retinal detachment and can never have children.

  The treatment is like one for a more traditional eating disorder (anorexia or bulimia).  The girl will undergo therapy to find out why her eating habits spiraled out of control. She will also, obviously, be put back on an insulin regimen and healthy diabetic diet.  The warning signs of diabulimia are excessive irritability, sluggishness, and high blood sugar.

     The pressures from society to be thin and the already restrictive diet of a type one diabetic is a dangerous combination and can tempt some girls to try this to get instant results.  The young woman we featured cautions strongly against it. She has recovered, as much as your body can from something like this, is back on insulin, and exercising — but she will forever carry the physical and emotional scars of this sefl-destructive part of her life.

Concussions and Kids October 20, 2008

   In tonight’s health alert we take a look at the prevalance of concussions in youth sports.  Doctors say half the kids who take the field for sports such as football will experience a concussion at some point during their sporting career.  And here’s a shocking number, 85% of them won’t realize it or do anything about it. A serious concussion left untreated can lead to brain damage, stroke, even death in some cases.  Parents you need to be aware of the symptoms of a concussion, especially if you’ve just seen your son or daughter get their ‘bell rung’ on the field.  Those symptoms include (and granted there are a lot) constant headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, trouble balancing, irritability, feeling emotional, and mental foginess. If your child experiences these things after a blow to the head, get them to a doctor immediately.

     There are things that can be done and one of the most promising tests is used by just about every major athletic association. It’s called an IMPACT test (“Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing”) and it helps gauge how serious the injury is, what kind of recovery time is needed to let the brain rest and heal, and how far along the recovery process is. It’s just a series of questions but the answers are compared against each other to get a feel for how an athlete is recovering.

     The brain is like any other part of our body when it gets injured. It needs time to heal. That means avoiding usual activities such as sports and even school for a time in order to make a full recovery. And for a young athlete, recovering quickly and being able to get back out there and play ball, is just what they want to do.

HIPEC October 13, 2008

   Confusing acronym, breakthrough medical technology. The HIPEC is featured in this week’s health alert and you really have to see this thing to believe it. We met an incredible woman, Nicole, who was diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer — and it doesn’t get much worse than that. Here’s what frustrated Nicole so much.. she knew something was wrong and doctor after doctor kept telling her that it was nothing but she pushed on — and sure enough she was right, unfortunately.  She ended up at Northside Hospital here in Atlanta where a revolutionary new treatment is being used. It’s called the (deep breath here) Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemoperfusion or HIPEC for short.

       HIPEC is performed right after surgery for ovarian caner. It delivers heated chemotherapy into the abdominal cavity, where it can penetrate diseased tissue directly. After the surgeon removes as much visible cancer as possible, the heated chemotherapy is circulated throughout the abdomen in an effort to kill the remaining cancer cells. It’s circulated for 90 minutes and them removed and the abdomen is flushed with a sterile saline solution. This method allows a much higher dose of chemo to permeate the tissue than could be accomplished by conventional chemo administration.

     We went with Nicole as she has the HIPEC procedure and it went very well. Nicole is a fighter and plans on living a long, healthy life with her family. She is now cancer free and HIPEC was vital in making that happen.

      And like Nicole, we women must listen to our bodies and insist on having tests done if we feel something isn’t right. Ovarian cancer is often called a silent killer because it is hard to detect and can worsen rapidly. Know your body, push for tests you think you should have, and know there are new medical advances available in Atlanta to help women fight deadly diseases.

Treating back pain October 6, 2008

    In this week’s health alert, we met a young woman with severe back pain. It is so debilitating she spends much of her day on the floor. She lives with her parents, she works from home, and she’s in constant pain. She’s opted not to have surgery right now, treating her pain instead with drugs and physical therapy but her story lead us to a local doctor who uses a state-of-the-art surgical device to alleviate back pain.

    At Northside Hospital in Atlanta, doctors are using what’s called an ‘O-Arm.’ It’s a robotic arm that allows them to pinpoint exactly where the pain is and insert screws or rods in the precise place. The neatest thing about this O-Arm is that it is used during surgery. During surgery – not before or after – as is typical with surgical locating devices. This has a lot of benefits. It cuts down on surgery time, the incision in the back is smaller, and probably most importantly, there is less pain. Now it must be said that back surgery is not for everyone with back pain. Even with this technology, back surgery is risky and doctors say it should be considered only as a last resort. But it is encouraging to know the technology is out there and more is being created all the time that may help get rid of back pain for millions of people.

     And for the young woman we met, only 25, and living basically as a prisoner in her home, relieving that pain and allowing her to re-gain her life, is the best news she can get.