Youngest's leg pains are a severe vitamin D deficiency!

Youngest(12) has been suffering with leg pains for the past few weeks, limping around, unable to take part in PE and has had a lot of time off school. 

They've also been very low and irritable for a few months and we had put this down to being part of being autisitc, but I got a rereferral back to the paediatrician because I wanted to make sure that we weren't missing some other medical reason.

An initial blood test showed nothing but, some weeks later, Youngest's legs started to hurt. At first, we thought it might be a tactic to avoid school but when the pains got worse, back we went to the GP.

She checked over the last set of blood tests and realised that the paediatrician had missed some important tests. and so ordered a fresh batch.

Now, Youngest and blood tests do NOT go together well. When we got to the nurse, to be told there was no anaesthetic or any kind, Youngest hopped off the bed and decided she wouldn't be taking any blood today, thank you very much.

She instead, made out a prescription for anaesthetic cream, which we had filled, applied and then waited 45 minutes for it to take effect. 

Armed with a test-distracting "Where's Wally" the blood was duly taken and within three days, we had the answer.

Youngest had about half the level of Vitamin D there should have been. Severe deficiency can cause irritability, depression, muscle pains and in the very worst cases, rickets. Luckily, it hadn't got that bad.

Youngest is now on a high dose of Vitamin D supplement for three months—and is not alone in this deficiency either. Parents are encouraged to slap Factor 50 on to their children and keep them out of the sun for fear of melanoma, the increase in fears over child safety, and the explosion of computer and console gaming means kids are spending more time indoors. And of course, it's been winter, which doesn't help.

In fact, the BBC recently reported:

The chief medical officer for England, Dame Sally Davies, is to contact medical staff about concerns young children and some adults are not getting enough vitamin D.
Government guidelines recommend some groups, including the under-fives, should take a daily supplement. However, recent research found that many parents and health professionals were unaware of the advice.
There has been an increase in childhood rickets over the past 15 years.
According to Dr Benjamin Jacobs, from the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, links to heart disease and some cancers are also being investigated. The consultant paediatrician told BBC Breakfast that the hospital saw about one severe case a month of rickets - softening of bones through lack of vitamin D in childhood.
He said: "There are many other children who have less severe problems - muscle weakness, delay in walking, bone pains - and research indicates that in many parts of the country the majority of children have a low level of vitamin D."
The Feeding for Life Foundation report, published in October last year, suggested one in four toddlers in the UK is vitamin D deficient.

The problem is Youngest doesn't like the outdoors much. Neither are being with or near strangers a favourite thing — or anyone for that matter. 

Youngest prefers to spend leisure time in their purple walled, black curtained, disco-balled TechnoLair and attempts to encourage trips out are usually met with point blank refusal.

When the GP looked at the blood test results, she said her son was the same so she was going to get him some Vitamin D supplement as well.

I am going to have to try harder not to just leave Youngest be in their room, and be tougher on getting them as a dog-walking friend. 

So, if you're concerned your own kids might be deficient, it wouldn't hurt to get them checked out, or just up their intake of VitD rich food and supplements. 

Thank goodness summer's around the corner!

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Ten Tips- Both Practical and Profound

1. Nonno told me this: After you've opened a jar of olives, always add a dash of vinegar to the brine to stop the olives going mouldy. If you love olives, like I do, this is a very important tip.
2. Jayne told me this: Attach your house key to your car keys so you never leave home without it. This seemed obvious when she told it to me, AFTER I'd locked myself out.
3. Keep your mobile by your bed at night in case of emergency. If there's no electricity, your mains-powered house phone won't work.
4. Back up you important documents and photos to a remote online service. If your house burns down, your back up discs and drives will melt too... Try Google Docs and Picasa for free services. Your ISP may have one, but what if you change ISP?
5. Never put anything on Facebook you wouldn't mind the world knowing. Or your boss. Or your kids.
6. Now and then, take a moment to stop and really look at your kids - freeze frame their young faces in your mind. Because before you know it, they'll be grown.
7. Try to do something kind for someone every day. Sometimes, maybe even often, it should be for yourself.
8. Maya Angelou said in one of her books that she realised the first words out of her mouth whenever she saw her son were critical of him - small things like tidiness, state of hair etc. She resolved to change that. This takes determination, I have found!
9. Take a moment to think of yourself as others see you. Do you like what you see?
10. Tell your family often that you love them. After all, you never know what the day will bring.

Okay, these are my tips - what are yours?

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It weren't like this in my day..

Coming to the end of a long, long, long summer holiday. I haven't written anything for over a month because my children have squeezed out any energy I have as if they were sucking out the last drops from a Capri-Sun juice pouch.
Don't think I don't like having them around, I do. But for two months and four days solid? When everything they want to do besides play on the computer either requires a) great expenditure of money that I don't have, or b) great expenditure of energy that I also don't have.
They've been on a film and animation course (£70 for one for two days) and a make-a-movie course (£280 for both for a week); they've been to Grandma's several times; they've been to Italy; they've been to the park with the dog umpteen times (and complained every single time); they've watched the Disney Channel until they developed American accents; they've had friends over and been to friends' houses; they've been on bike rides and long walks. And now, by September, they are experts on Roblox, a computer animation program for kids where the worst that can happen is to be called a 'Noob'. My eldest son knows every Michael Jackson song word for word (and of course, that means so do we- I can hear it as I type).
The thing is, all of these activities, except the TV watching and computer time, involve an adult, ie, me or sometimes Grandma.
When I were a lass, oop North, I used to spend the summers wandering around the village and meandering through fields and along streams alone or with friends. My sister and I used to play out for hours, unfettered by the irritation of grown-ups, coming home only for dinner and tea (we didn't have lunch in the North-West). We used to call round for friends across the village without a parent needing to be with us.
Even on school days, my mother would leave for work at 8am and we would have to get ourselves to school, home again and start the tea, letting ourselves in with keys that were tied with ribbon around our necks. Now, I'm not saying being a latch-key kids was ideal, but it taught us independence and to make our own drink of juice if we wanted one at the very least.
Is the danger to our kids any greater today than it used to be? Well, yes, it is if you count the increase in traffic and as my kids have Asperger Syndrome, it's not so easy to let them out of your sight. But is the danger of being snatched off the street by an evil-doer any greater? I honestly don't know the answer to that, but I do know that because of the media input, the fear of the worst is much greater than it was when I was a child.
I don't remember my mother ever worrying about us being kidnapped and murdered when she waved us off on a Saturnday morning to walk to Tottington for our ballet class, or of me coming home alone from school aged 7 through our quiet village. She wouldn't have dreamed of walking or driving me to a friend's house unless it was too far for foot travel and not on a bus route.
And yet, even if my children didn't have special needs, I couldn't imagine letting them go any further than a short walk with the dog, and that's only the elder one as he is almost my size.
The question is, does this lack of early freedom do our children any long term harm? Or any long-term good? Again, I don't know the answer but I'm not about to experiment with benign neglect to find out. I would, however, be interested in your views, so leave me a comment if you have time.

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Mmm.. Dog Food..

At the weekend, we came back from a busy morning out armed with sandwiches for lunch from Tesco Express. Everyone tucked in, but Luca, the eldest, decided to watch TV while eating his. He got so absorbed, that 15 minutes later he still hadn't finished half of it.
The dog, previously gambolling in the garden, decided it was time to go in. Leo (the dog), being the gannet hound he is, spied the unguarded tasty morsel that was Luca's sausage and egg sandwich and with one bound he was on it, dragging it off the plate in his ever hungry puppy jaws.
Luca was incensed. Realising his sandwich was a goner, he leapt off the sofa, shouted at the dog and marched off to where the dog's bowl was.
"See how you like it!" he yelled, grabbed some kibble (Eukaneuba, so not just any old kibble), and stuffed it in his own mouth.
We all looked on, astonished, not quite able to believe what we had just witnessed. The dog, who didn't care one bit, ignored him totally as he was still enjoying the sandwich.
Luca chewed the kibble, slower and slower.. "It doesn't taste of anything.." he said, his face screwed up in disgust. He was oblivious to the fact that he was eating dog food but clearly felt a new understanding for why Leo might prefer a sausage and egg sarny. I couldn't tell you if he swallowed it or spat it out because my sides were aching from laughing. But both dog and boy have learned that human food is infinitely tastier than dog food and that when it comes to food.. speed is of the essence.
Mind you, this doesn't explain my younger son, whom I caught happily slurping a glass of milk.. and enjoying a nice crunchy puppy Bonio biscuit to go with it. And he's the picky eater!

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