Would you be annoyed with school pastoral person over this?

[PikachuSayBoo]

Dd is in year 11 and has been unwell for a couple of months. She's been diagnosed with severe anaemia and very low Vit d levels.

I rang school up yesterday and told the pastoral lead for her year. I wanted to give her a heads up that dd is very tired, she's worrying that it's going to affect her at school, she has brain fog, is depressed and has chest pains and shortness of breath.

So this afternoon dd is in a lot of pain and starts crying in class. Lesson finishes and dd is sat in the school cloisters crying. She has a late lesson on a Tuesday so should stay after school has technically finished. This is a compulsary lesson not an optional one. One of dds teachers told her she should go home. Pastoral person comes along sees dd and according to dd shouts at her, tells her that crying isn't going to help and that she needs to get to her next lesson. Dd told her she was crying because she was in so much pain and says she was just shouted at.

Dh wants to ring up and complain. Dd had 100% attendance last year so isn't the sort of kid to try and skive off a lesson. Dd doesn't want us to ring up school as she says the HOY and pastoral person hate her enough already.

[passthewineplz]

If your GP has prescribed a dosage of 1,600 it looks like they may have slightly increased it based on the recommended daily dosage which is 1,000 max. According to national guidelines this can be increased upto 10,000 for 4-8 weeks, however rather than increasing the dosage yourself, please speak to your DD's GP.

[passthewineplz]

Sorry forgot to say. In the first instance please always follow your GP's recommendations. However if you'd like to carry out your own research, please refer to the evidence based research which is used by/followed by health professionals - which is available at the NICE, and the Royal college of pediatrics and child healths website sites. The journals and articles are often valid, however until evidenced based research is completed health professionals are unable to recommended the findings from the analysis.

[JudyCoolibar]

I really don't understand why you would rather make decisions about dosage based on Google than phone your GP.

However, putting that aside, I would suggest writing to the school without referring to this specific incident and spelling out what the known symptoms of your DD's condition are, with specific reference to it causing hr a great deal of pain. If you can back it up with a medical report, so much the better. Emphasise that she is a child who tries to keep going and does not skive, so if anything they may need to make her go home or go and lie down, rather than shouting at her to stop her.

[PikachuSayBoo]

passthewine thanks for that link. I've read it a few weeks ago and it states that the dose should be Higher than what the GP prescribed.

I can't ring the GP, they don't communicate with people like that. They don't want her to have her bloods redone until the end of Oct when she's been taking meds for three months.

But I'll try and get her seen next week if I can get an appt. and will also try and make sure it's not with the same VTS trainee Dr as last time because not only do I think he didn't prescribe enough Vit d he totally messed her contraception and mefanemic acid prescriptions up. So no I don't have much faith in him.

[Discobabe]

I don't know about vit d deficiency but she shouldn't still be feeling ill with the anaemia. It's normally rectified reasonably quickly with iron tabs. I'd be concerned if she was still having symptoms of that after 7wks? of meds. Definitely take her back as you said.

[RhodaBorrocks]

If she's still feeling so unwell after being on the tablets for 6 weeks I'd be taking her back to the GP.

You should stick to the dose, for no other reason than if you don't then you'll be skewing the repeat bloods at the end of October.

If you overmedicate her and she starts to feel better, and the bloods come back better, and you say nothing, then the GP will think that 1600iu is the correct dose for her. Not knowing you've doubled it. They'll continue to under medicated and you'll continue to overmedicate and nothing will be learned. In fact, if there are other issues they may not be uncovered.

I say this as someone who's DM is currently under medicated on thyroxine (doctors orders until more tests are done) and feeling awful, but sticking to it, as continuing over medicating may be masking other problems.

At your DDs age I also felt awful all the time, lots of pain, anaemic etc. I was eventually diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. I'm just saying that as I want you to know that it could be other things if the vitamin D isn't helping much, so keep pushing with the GP to get to the bottom of things.

(And as to what others have said about weights and medicines - DS is tiny, so I always give him the dose recommended for one age group lower than he is, as listed on the packaging. When we got the new NICE dose guidelines at work I saw I was doing exactly the right thing and if I'd dosed him by age rather than weight I would have been overdosing him.)

[MsJudgemental]

Could her contraception have something to do with it?

[PikachuSayBoo]

Don't think so. They only started her on the contraception a few weeks ago to try and make her cycle more regular as they thought frequent periods might be one of the reasons behind the anaemia.

[knittingwithnettles]

I'm bumping this thread to see if anyone knows whether a 16/17 year old (year 12) with a Vit D level of 25 nmol would be considered deficient or insufficient. Because the GP has just prescribed (without talking to me, or knowing ds's weight, which is that of a fullgrown man) a kick start dose of 25,000 IU a month. The instructions on the packet and on those paediatric guidelines state that deficiency is treated with an ampoule of 25,000 IU a week. Whereas insufficiency is just a question of 1000 a day. Don't know what to think or do, or whether to question, or just increase the dose myself.

Any experts? (I will ring the dr on Monday, just wanted to be forewarned and know whether I am making unnecessary fuss over standard dosage) Ds is quite lowspirited atm, and sleeps too much, always tired etc. His iron is fine as is his B12 and thyroid.

[ChameleonCircuit]

Knitting, you'd be much better off starting your own thread with an appropriate title, you'll get better answers.

[ImBackOnHereAgain]

As someone who battled ME/CFS for years a s a teenager and young adult and now has to take Vit D for a deficiency I feel for your daughter. I had a nightmare getting understanding at school for my ME although to be fair, the issue wasn't so much teachers but thre other students. I would like to think things in schools have moved on regarding hidden disabilities/chronic illness but sadly it seems they haven't . :(

[ImBackOnHereAgain]

frequent periods and vit D deficiency can be part of PCOS- I am guessing thyat has been ruled out in your daughter;s case? Fatigue and being overemotional are also symptoms of it.