Perhaps Eliza's latest ailment was caused by drinking too much bath water? Hmmmmm. Unlikely.
Since Thursday night Eliza has been wheezing, gasping for breath and miserable. She has also been vomiting at night almost hourly. Never a good thing unless you own the Scott towel company. So after a visit to the pediatrician it appears she has a touch of pneumonia, probably from aspirating some vomit. Nice. It's been a fun few days here fighting with the nebulizer and trying to get a bunch of syrupy meds into Eliza and sleeping in stretches of one to two hours at a time.
The visit also revealed that despite a month of new formula with a higher caloric value and adding some nasty stuff called Benecalorie to her yogurt Eliza has gained only 3 ounces. Makes you wonder what she would have lost on her normal diet. The pediatrician seems to think that Eliza may have delayed gastric emptying. The nutritionist from the feeding clinic also mentioned the same thing. This might explain why she has never been able to consume more than four ounces of anything at any one time. So when we visit the GI on Friday, I'll see what he thinks about this theory. It makes sense though. Also since she has been on her "souped up" diet she has pretty much vomited every night at 10 p.m., which may be a result of the higher osmolarity of the new formula. The past few days though she has no "solids" a/k/a yogurt and only about 16 ounces of formula has stayed in on any given day. Can't wait to see what she weighs next Friday.
So hope springs eternal for some new and improved answer to Eliza's inability to eat.
It's so sad to hear that Little Eliza Grace is having such a hard time of things. When she first came into our lives we prayed for "3 ounces".
ReplyDelete"God, could you maybe make it another 3 ozs. She sure could use a little help here"??
If prayers and good wishes can make it so...it will be.
Much love to Miss Eliza Grace and her "Old Single Mom"!!
What are you guys doing, anyway, copying us? I thought that DGE was our own personal hell. Anyway, this is the word from the feeding folks: try pediatric (or regular old cut down) suppositories to help her unblock initially. No motility agent will help until then.
ReplyDeleteThis is my own personal latest attempt to fix up the system: dark Karo syrup. It worked in our home-brew recipe way back when (and was part of the food regimen during our magical -- and long past -- two week vomit free period in April). And so when I came upon references to it last night while trolling the reflux and DGE boards, I hit myself in the head and went 'duh' really loudly.
In any event, we've added this and some probiotics to Hallie's bottle today. No word on whether it'll work to unblock her (though theoretically it should), but here's the good part: 2 TBS=120 kcal. So, if your kid (as ours does) eats 2 to 2.5 8 ounce bottles a day (we're stuck at the 16-20 ounce mark), that could add as much as 200 additional calories. Hallie did not reject her super sweet pediasure after her ear tube surgery today (it had between 1 and 2 tbs of karo in it--I eyeballed it). May be worth a try if Eliza does not rebel.
Major major hugs about the pneumonia, btw. This sounds like a crappy (ok, not crappy but barfy) period for you and you have our deepest empathy.
I wouldn't eat either if my mother made me wear a fdez while bathing.
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