After Autism Diagnosis: A New Parental Role

The day when you become a parent is one of the best of your life. You feel overjoyed when your child starts walking, talking, and responding to your love. But what would you do if your child responds, talks, and behaves in a different manner than you would generally expect? You might get overwhelmed and rush to your doctor to find out what’s going wrong. If the doctor diagnoses your child with autism, you may feel confused and shocked. Autism is chronic, meaning you will have to alter your parenting to benefit your child for life.

Don’t let autism take charge

The positive side to an autism diagnosis is that your actual parental role has just begun, maybe in a new form. It’s time for you to revise, modify, and adapt to a new situation while keeping your goals intact. Remember that autism diagnosis is just the beginning of a new long journey for both the parents and the child. Socialization, language, and the many other problems that arise with autism can take their toll on your child’s life. Having to see your child fight these problems might put you in a state of despair and stress. In this article, we will discuss how you can slowly yet effectively transform your parental role into a new one.

Take action

Start your new day with a bit of hope and lots of strategies to help your child cope with the debilitating effects. Here are some tips for you:

1.    Talk to your child slowly and never let your children stray away from conversation: For a child with autism, silence is not the best answer. You have to steal a considerable amount of time from your hectic schedule so that you can talk to your child using clear and simple sentences. Doing so will help your child learn more about communication and interaction with other people. Be patient enough to learn to accept that your child’s response may not meet your expectations on the first try. 

2.    Take your child out for play: Life in a box is detrimental for your autistic child. Spending an hour or more in an external environment keeps your child attached to their surroundings. The child will also learn to behave properly in response to outside factors like crowds, noise, and people near you. Think of going for a walk or to a calm park.

3.    Take caution but be open to experiments: Since you are totally unaware of how your child will respond to a new diet or a new medication, giving them a try (with caution, strictly) with consultation from your doctor is never a bad idea.

4.    Take expert advice: Experts do not necessarily refer to medical personnel only! Other parents who have been going through the same phase or those experienced in parenting an autistic child may be able to give tips. It is however essential to note that all those tips may not work for your child, as each case is unique.

5.    Be your child’s best friend: It’s not as difficult as you might think. Being your child’s friend is the best way to support and monitor the behavior and response to specific situations. Friendship allows more room for your child to express what he or she is thinking or feeling. Once you get an idea of your child’s thinking, you can design or modify further strategies more easily. Negligence or ignorance can leave an everlasting negative impression in the child’s maturing mind. So, do not show your frustration or anger in front of your child. Stay cool!

Further Reading: Choosing the Right Education for Your Autistic Child

In a nutshell, autism diagnosis can be painful, along with the initial months of parenting. Once you get “used to” and start learning new ways to cope, things become manageable or at least bearable. Treatment plans work their best when your child gets supplemental emotional support from you. 

For more Tips on Raising a Child with Autism

If your child is diagnosed with autism and you want to learn more about the condition, its effects, or parenting tips, talk to the best doctors in your town at FindaTopDoc.com. Booking is absolutely free and the service is available 7 days a week/24 hours a day.

Related: How Is Autism Diagnosed

Zetia Plus Simvastatin (Vytorin) Improves Risk of Cardiovascular Events after an Acute Coronary Syndrome

Zetia plus Simvastatin is a medicine developed by Merck on October 25, 2002 and was even approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Around two years later, Vytorin was approved by the FDA, which is an accurate dose combination of simvastatin and ezetimibe.

Zetia works in the digestive tract by blocking the absorption of cholesterol from food consumed. If Zetia used in combination with a statin it reduces LDL-C levels by an extra 15 to 20 percent. However, there have been no strong facts or evidence claiming that adding Zetia to a treatment regimen results in reduced patient’s risk of experiencing stroke or heart attack.

Both Vytorin and Zetia indicate as effective therapies to diet for the reducing elevated total cholesterol, non-HDL cholesterol, apolipoprotein B, and LDL cholesterol in patients with primary hyperlipidemia. This medicine comes as 10 mg tablet and Vytorin is a fixed dose combination of ezetimibe (10 mg) with different strengths of simvastatin (10, 20, 40 and 80 mg). A patient can take both medications once daily without or with food.

Common Reactions

Zetia and Vytorin can result in strong reactions such as muscle pain, common cold, joint pain diarrhea, and upper respiratory tract infections. They have varying effects on different patients. Other side-effects include skeletal muscle effects causing myopathy in which the individual feels pain in muscles, or rhabdomyolysis. This is related to the breakdown of muscle that results in increasing the relative dose of statin administered. With 80 mg of simvastatin, a hike in cases of rhabdomyolysis has been observed. But patients, who have been using Vytorin in 10/80 mg over a period of twelve months without any incidents, can continue treatment.

Risk of Cardiovascular Events

There are diverse factors linked with stroke and coronary heart disease. Some of which include age, ethnicity and family history. Other common risks are high cholesterol, unhealthy diets, obesity, excess alcohol and physical inactivity. Hypertension is the most critical risk factor for CVD.

If your blood pressure is too high it can damage supply route dividers, and increase your risk of building up blood coagulation. Blood pressure is measured in millimeters of mercury (mmHg) and is recorded as two figures:

           ·          Systolic weight – the weight of the blood when your heart pulsates to pump blood out.

           ·          Diastolic weight – the weight of the blood when your heart rests in the middle of pulsates, which reflects how firmly your courses are opposing blood stream.

When to avoid Zetia and Vytorin?

Zetia and Vytorin shouldn’t be taken by patients who have a liver impairment. Pregnant women should also avoid the drugs. If you have an allergy to any of the components that are found in these medicines, avoid taking them.

Zetia plus Simvastatin (Vytorin) improves risk of cardiovascular events after an acute coronary syndrome.

Most of the patients with high-risk heart diseases are treated with statins and have decreased LDL-C levels but, still have increased cardiovascular risk. There are various studies to find out whether lowering LDL-C under 70 mg/dL by adding ezetimibe to statin, results in reduced incidence of cardiovascular events including fatal stroke, non-fatal myocardial infarction, and readmission into the hospital for unstable angina, cardiovascular death, and coronary revascularization within a period of 30 days of the initial treatment.

It has been found through various researches that the addition of ezetimibe to a statin can result in a greater decline in cardiovascular events than monotherapy with a statin. It's for the first time that a non-statin cholesterol-lowering medication has directly shown positive results in a study.

With Zetia plus Simvastatin (Vytorin) there has been a significant decrease in the amount of patients who have experienced cardiovascular problems while taking this medicine. Zetia is not implemented for acute coronary syndromes.