Truckers with depression find hope and others to listen online
Truck drivers are one of the top eight occupations likely to commit suicide. A Facebook group has become a place for drivers with depression to get help and find camaraderie.
Poor dental health on the road can turn fatal
Most truckers' dental emergencies from drivers include abscessed teeth, broken teeth, decayed teeth, and broken dentures, often made worse when dental care is put off.
Dr. Thomas Roemer, the dentist at the Iowa 80 Truckstop, has seen it too many times. His practice is 95% emergency, drop-in care, but too often it’s beyond any dental intervention.
“My biggest advice to truck drivers is to keep themselves out of a medical emergency by making sure a dental problem doesn’t turn into a medical problem…I’m not here to say to [most of my patients], ‘Hey, you need to get your teeth cleaned and examined.’ We’re beyond that. It’s a situation where they have to get some kind of care to try to stay out the medical emergency room. I know I keep saying ‘medical, but there’s a handful of guys over the years I’ve sent to the hospital because I can’t even treat them. It’s actually that bad and I’ve said: ‘You [...]
“It sort of resets me,” says Echols, who has been driving for 21 years, some of it over the road. “I find breathing meditation to be the simplest and most effective. I think there are benefits physically to it as well. If you concentrate on your breathing, you can’t focus on anything else.”
Echols doesn’t know any other drivers who mediate, and he suggests that the majority of truckers think meditation is “wacky, kooky stuff.” He adds that for the many drivers, meditation comes across as weakness or worse, for some, as an anti-Christian or Eastern-based religion in opposition to their own religious beliefs. “Mediation is just sitting still. If you tell people to sit still for a few minutes and just breathe, that’s something that your mother or your grandmother said to do; sit still and breathe. That’s mediation, but they didn’t call it meditation. If we can explain to drivers, ‘Look, we just want [...]
Truck drivers have a higher-than-average risk for diabetes, which affects over 30 million Americans. That’s largely because the sedentary nature of truck driving contributes to obesity and lack of physical activity, which increases the risk for Type 2 diabetes.
DIABETES TYPES. Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of diabetes, occurs when the body develops insulin resistance and is unable to use insulin properly. This causes an inability to regulate blood glucose levels properly, causing levels of blood glucose, or sugar, to rise too high.
Only about 5 percent of people who have diabetes have Type 1 diabetes, which is not as straightforward as Type 2 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes typically is diagnosed in children and young adults, according to the American Diabetes Association. It is considered to be caused by an immune reaction in which the body attacks itself. Family history and age are considered risk factors.
SYMPTOMS. Frequent thirst and excessive urination [...]
