Coping with family members and friends

Not only do parents have to deal with their own emotions but also they have to handle reaction of their family and friends. Sometimes family members can say things to make situation worse, questioning your prenatal care, dismissing problem as not as severe as you are telling them, or giving you unwanted advice. You may hear things like "well you can just get him glasses", or "you know they have surgeries for that". Even as you try to educate them on subject, often times they have their own beliefs. Sometimes it is best to keep discussions to a minimum if they are not supportive or helpful to you.

What to do next

Once you receive your diagnosis, you may be wondering what you can do. Talk to your pediatrician about getting services with a vision therapist. This is often available through Early Intervention programs. Ask your pediatrician whom to contact for more information on this. Read as much as you can on subject. Knowledge about your child's vision condition will make you feel less helpless. Find a support group. If you can't find one locally, you can find one online. There are many support groups available for specific vision disorders.

Helpful links:

Albinism- NOAH http://www.albinism.org The National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation

Nystagmus - American Nystagmus Network http://www.nystagmus.org

Optic Nerve Hypoplasia/ Septo Optic Dysplasia - Focus Families http://www.focusfamiles.org

Retinopathy of Prematurely The Association for Retinopathy of Prematurity and Related Diseases http://www.ropard.org

Strabismus http://www.strabismus.org

Blindness and low vision http://www.blindness.org

National Association for Parents of Children with Visual Impairments http://www.spedex.com/napvi/

So what happens if you don’t eat enough protein? This is a very important point because many people don’t even come close to meeting their daily protein requirements!

When your body doesn’t get sufficient protein you can experience food cravings, fatigue, moodiness, depression, poor memory, and poor sleep. Further, you can find yourself out of shape and with excess fat. Your body may even steal protein from your muscles and organs, including heart! Over time, your metabolism may slow down and you may even be at increased risk for a variety of diseases.

The second key element of designing a healthy weight management program is to know your resting metabolic rate (RMR). This is number of calories your body burns while at rest per day. If you eat 500 calories less per day than your resting metabolic rate, you will lose about 1 pound a week. If you eat more than your RMR, and you don’t exercise to burn off those excess calories, then you will gain weight.

When designing your weight management program it is generally considered unhealthy for women to consume less than 1200 calories a day and for men, 1800 per day. As a woman if your resting metabolic rate is 1700 calories or less, you will need to consider exercise as part of your weight loss regime in order to see results in first week or two.

Armed with these two pieces of information you will be able to assess many of faddish diets that abound and cut through diet-hype. Of course, there are many other aspects of healthy weight loss, but these two principles are cornerstone to building a healthy program that will enable you to sustain long term weight loss.