Oh My Goodness!
I'm so glad that these appointments are over.
We started out with an ultrasound on his kidneys and adrenal gland. We learned that the hemorrhage has gotten smaller meaning that it's resolving itself. YAY! His kidneys still look a little enlarged, but the Urologist isn't too concerned about it yet. We'll just keep watching them.
After that we headed over to ENT. Carter has been doing well with his breathing, but occasionally he gets a little whistle in his throat and whenever that happens it seems like his breathing gets a little heavy too. I thought for sure that he had Laryngomalacia, and Carter's Pediatrician did too. The ENT did a Laryngoscopy which is where he took a long wire which is about as thin as spaghetti and pushed it through Carter's nose and into his throat. It has a tiny camera on the end that showed us what is going on in Carter's throat. It turns out that the whole area was VERY red and inflamed proving once and for all that Carter definitely has acid reflux. We added another reflux med (Zantac) and are going to try getting him off of the continuous feeds at night. The ENT pointed out that if your stomach is being continuously fed, it will continuously produce acid. Hopefully this works. Honestly, Carter has been doing well, but after seeing how red and inflamed his throat was, he must really be miserable. I hope we can help this with medication and no surgery is needed.
I am a little bit mad at myself over this whole thing. Way back when Carter was in the NICU, he had another Laryngoscopy done which showed similar results. Things are a little fuzzy for me, but I remember that at some point they took him off of one of the medications and after another test the NICU docs decided that he actually didn't have it. I fought to keep Carter on the Prevacid, but I should have fought to keep him on the Zantac too. I remember Carter's nurses telling me that he needed to be on both, but I gave up the fight at one medication. At least now we have proof, and can move on.
4 comments:
Sorry! :( I really hope you can fix this problem with meds. BUT...if you do have to have surgery, it's made a world of difference for Ben. He had a nissan done and almost 7 years later it's still intact. Good luck!
I do agree that getting him off continuous feeds at night will help if he can tolerate bolus feeds during the day. There is also a reflux med you can give him right before he eats, but I forget the name of it.
Sometimes it;s difficult to find that balance between advocating for our kids, trusting our instincts but not looking like the crazy mom!! I'm glad you got some answers, poor little guy....his birthday is coming up right?
I am glad you found out its acid reflux and I hope the zantac works for him.
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