GI Checkups

It's hard to believe that another 8 weeks (well more than that due to snow storms and rescheduled appointments) has come and gone since their last medical checkup with Dr. Hofley. None-the-less it was a good day/bad day kind of appointment.

Joshua is doing awesome now. At his last check up he was at 22.5 lbs. but has jumped up to a whopping 24.03 lbs!! That's huge for him...generally he gains ounces to maybe A pound. Plus he grew a little more in height by almost an inch. We both believe it is largely due to the lack of dairy in his diet...to the point that she wants him 100% dairy free for at least the next month. We want to see if it further helps his sleeping issues, and diaper issues, as well as continue to add to the weight gain. He's had some really nasty, foul diapers which could be due to a number of things. We replaced his soy milk so that won't be the issue anymore, but he's still having enough dairy that although his asthma is at bay, it may still be enough to cause some digestive issues, or sleep issues. Not to mention that fact that he just survived yet another ear infection. In any case, we will do some blood work on Monday to check his CBC, zinc, TTg (celiac blood test) check for lead and Hep B. I guess some kiddos with digestive issues are having problems with their vaccines "sticking". We are also able to wean him off his Prevacid with hopes of weaning him off Zyrtec as well. It will be nice to continue to drop off some of the meds he's been on.

Ethan, not so good. He didn't gain any weight or grow any taller since his last visit. And for the first time ever, I had a small glimpse into what life may be like for people with low functioning autism. Throughout most of the appointment today, I had to restrain Ethan, full body, due to his yelling, hitting me, head butting, pushing his brother, and other extremely over stimulated activity. Even Dr. Hofley noted that he was much worse today than ever in the past. We've noticed more autistic behaviour in the past couple of weeks as well, rigidity, anxiety, lining up all of his vehicles in nice straight rows, (for those of you who know Ethan he's a rather destructive player, piling up toys so he can scoop and dump them...everywhere), and falling apart at the seams over a change in his schedule. Basically, all of the progress we had made over the past several months, falling apart in the past couple of weeks. Thank God, we have Dr. Hofley...she pointed out to this very exasperated mother that dairy may have a part in all of this. Ironically, Ethan has increased his dairy intake over the last couple of weeks. He's been eating at least 2 bowls of cereal with whole milk for breakfast, lots of cheese, and asking for a cup of milk with his dinner every night. We were psyched because he's NEVER been a big milk drinker and were happy that maybe he would really start some serious weight gain. Hehehe, no more. He will also be 100% dairy free for the next month. She wants to see if we notice any change, and if we don't we can participate in a double blind study she's been providing for families to determine if milk is really the issue with regards to behavior. Interestingly I mentioned that when we started Rebekah with yogurt we began to notice that she would cough repeatedly every time afterwards. Dr. Hofley wasn't surprised and said that since we now know that Joshua definitely has a problem with milk, it isn't out of the realm of possibilities that the other kiddos will have their own issues with it as well.

So, where is the silver lining in all of this?? Well, fortunately for us, most of our gluten free packaged foods happen to be dairy/casein free as well. The only problems we run into now are cheese and milk substitutes. A few of their favorite snacks like pirate booty, and their arrowroot cookies will have to go as they have a lot of milk ingredients. Our fall back lunch-on-the-go of cheese sticks wrapped in turkey/ham slices will also be a thing of the past. Plus, it's going to be real tough if not impossible to find any kind of substitute for mac and cheese...the "if all else fails we can make mac and cheese for all three kiddos" kind of meal. But, since we've been doing a mostly dairy free diet for Josh, we don't have to make too many changes. It just makes things that much tougher when we go somewhere. That whole "at least we can have the veggies, sour cream dip, and cheese slices" when we go to someones house has now become "mmm...veggies".