Breezing by with Hirschsprung's Disease.. #57

I feel like I haven't updated since October when Isaac had some testing done. Between then and now he also had some allergy testing done with his allergist. It had been a year since we had seen him last and we decided since Isaac was having some issues that now had been ruled out with his procedure under sedation by his GI, that maybe it could be food allergy related. We already knew from last year when he was allergy tested that he was lactose intolerant and also had an oat allergy. But we felt maybe someone else was going on. 

This time the dr did a 35+ food panel. A lot more than his testing last year. And who would of know, he is allergic to TURKEY and COCONUT! How odd is that?! We eat a lot of turkey and chicken figuring it is a lean meat and easy to digest. We also gave him coconut water EVERY single day in his smoothie. After discussing with his allergist, we were pretty confident we should remove these foods from his diet. Especially after the episodes he was having. Everything kind of pin pointed to these foods at the culprit. What an easy fix! And relief for us. 

He had the simple scratch test again. This time it was a little bit more intense because of how many foods were on the panel. And well because Isaac is 3.. A little bit more aware of what was going on. BUT he did amazing. He really did. He is such a strong boy. 

So jump forward about a month, to the present. We just saw Isaac's surgeon and GI within the last week. Both of his exams went well. They felt around on his tummy, listened to his bowel sounds, and everything looked great! We didn't even need to go for an xray because they felt things looked really good from what they could see. Since removing those foods from his diet, we haven't noticed any of the symptoms we had been seeing. Which is such a relief. Now we need to get into our nutritional practitioner for a recheck. :) We also have continued chiropractic care which has been such an asset to this battle. In one of my other posts I also talked about the essential oils we use for digestive issues. We are still doing these as well, as needed. We seem to be breezing by with Hirschsprung's Disease. At least for now :) 

I wanted to add this little insert to this post because this is a supplement Isaac's nutritional practitioner has him on. Which has also kept him regular and has been helping to "heal" his gut. As you can see from the ingredients, this is really beneficial for HD kiddos. It has a lot of natural elements to help with bowel movements and for digestive upset. It is called Core Condurango Blend by Energetix. I will put the link to their site here.. 

http://www.goenergetix.com

**Disclaimer - I am not a licensed medical professional. I only administer supplements and natural products under a medical professional advice. I am not claiming to cure or treat any medical condition. This is what has worked for my child, but may not work for yours. Please do your research on ANY product you chose for your child. Speak to a medical professional. I am just a mom trying to help her son in any way possible. Energetix only sells their products to licensed healthcare professionals so find a reputable practitioner in your area. 

CHIROPRACTIC care for Hirschsprung's!!.. #48

Please forgive me! I have been so sidetracked the last couple days, err weeks, that I have not had time to even update. I have been vaguely talking about how we started Isaac on chiropractic care and I have been getting floods of messages and emails about it. I think it's important, especially with special needs medical kiddos, to seek out ANY alternative (dont know why it is called alternative medicine because this is our choice in medicine) therapies you can. With that said, each child is not the same so results will vary. Hirschsprung's is a very tricky disease and there are so many ups and downs. Trials and errors.

So we saw our GI dr back in March that suggested we try some alternative therapies with Isaac. Chiropractic care was one he had mentioned. I had thought about chiro care in the past but with everything going on I just never got around to taking Isaac in. Boy do I wish I would of done so sooner.

In my previous posts lately I had been talking about bringing Isaac to a nutritional practitioner, trying senna on and off, a lot of ups and down. We have been battling getting him regular for almost 7 months. Since October. It has been really stressful. So I figured, you know what, why not. Why not try chiro and see what happens. 

Fast forward to about 5 weeks of chiropractic care. We saw Isaac's surgeon on May 8th and for the first time in 6 months she was shocked. Shocked that he was completely clear. Empty. No stool at all. She even joked she could feel his kidney he was so clear. This was the first time in at least 12 visits she had said even something remotely close to this. About a week prior to that appt we had taken Isaac off his prescribed senna dose because it was causing a bunch of adverse reactions for him. Lots of gas, stomach pains, diarrhea. At this point I felt like it was just too much for him. So telling his surgeon what had been going on we felt at this time he should be taken off the senna. His bowel was now functioning normally. I believe the chiropractic care was the missing piece to this puzzle for my son. Chiropractic care is not just about back or neck pain, it's about allowing your body to function and heal properly through these adjustments. This essentially allowed his bowel to "wake up."

I am very much a science based person. So there is not question in my mind that this is not a coincidence. We finally found a combination of things that are working for our son that does not include medications or some type of medical intervention.

We take Isaac to an awesome, well known, chiropractor here in the Tacoma area. Dr. Mike Long at Renaissance Chiropractic Center. Dr. Mike is so amazing with kids. This is by far Isaac's favorite dr to visit.

I know a lot of parents question alternative care because they just don't know much about it or they are afraid they can't afford it. Chiropractic care for children is so inexpensive. So inexpensive. And so so beneficial! Isaac has been doing very well with it and only goes about once every 2 weeks.

It has been such a huge relief to not have to give him senna everyday. Or do rectal irrigations. Or some type of medical intervention just to get him to poop. It made me cringe every time I had to give senna to him. Not knowing if it would upset his stomach and cause him pain. Things really did a 180 degree turn in such a short amount of time for him. I hope it continues to look up.

Here are some pictures from one of his appointments with Dr. Mike!! And for more information about Renaissance Chiropractic Center here is their link to their website..

www.chirotacoma.com

Yesterday was another down day.. #47

Saturday around 3 am Isaac woke up and vomited all over our bed. We put him in the bath, washed him up, and snuggled on the couch for a little bit. He ended up throwing up once more before falling back to sleep. When he woke up he was acting totally fine. He insisted that dada and I get up right away so we could play. Throughout the day he seemed 100% normal. He ate fine, drank fine, played fine, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Around 3:30pm he started complaining about his stomach hurting. Then the diarrhea started. Red flag! So he asked to take a bath. We decided to call his surgeon and see if there was anything we should be watching for. You know that extra reassurance this was just a viral thing and it will pass as soon as it came on. By the time we hung up with the surgeon and got him out of the tub we could tell him upper abdomen was rock hard and he sort of had a lump on the upper left side. At this point I was really concerned. We called the surgeon back and he said to bring him in. Luckily, it was one of the surgeons who has treated Isaac before and we absolutely trust.

The ER doctor did an exam, we had an x-ray, and they started him on an IV. They also drew labs. One of the PA's from the surgical team came down to access Isaac herself. After reviewing the x-ray the surgeon came down. He said he was a little concerned. I hate hearing those words. But I kind of already knew that something was going on. He told us the x-ray was not good. He said it could be 1 of 3 things...

1. A large bowel obstruction (um what)

2. Enterocolitis (fabulous)

3. Colitis - like viral gastroenteritis

I was hoping it was number 3. Obviously. I knew that when I saw him that something was not good. Usually when surgery comes down it's like the oh sh@t factor. He told us he wanted to do his own exam and do an irrigation because that would tell him more about what this was. The irrigation went fine. He said he didn't feel any resistance while doing it which meant it was not an obstruction.  Hallelujah.  And since it wasn't explosive he was pretty sure it wasn't enterocolitis. Hallelujah x 2. He did want to admit us though for observation. And that would give them a chance to get the labs results back too. So we waited for our transport upstairs. Another hospital stay. The second one in less than 2 months.

We got up to our room around 9pm. I think. I can't even remember. The night was uneventful.  He got to eat. We watched cartoons and played with some toys. The labs came back normal. His inflammation marker was not elevated which confirmed he did not have enterocolitis. That pretty much left only one option.. Viral illness. Which was the best news. The only news I was willing to accept.

They woke up early this AM. Around 6am. The nurse told us we needed to get him to x-ray because the surgeon would be in the OR all day and wouldn't be able to read the x-ray until after 4pm and if it had improved he wanted to get us home asap.

The x-ray had improved drastically. The issues from not even 12 hrs prior had resolved. The surgeon came by and just did one last exam. And said we could go home.

Just another bump in this long road.. But hopeful of better days. ♡

Up down up down.. #45

January (my last update) and February seemed to be our sick months. Isaac had that viral thing that landed us in the hospital, then had a cold, then another cold with his first ear infection. Needless to say, we are looking forward to the summer. Hopefully all the sickies are behind us because I feel like we have been cooped up for weeks. I was down for a few days because I caught his cold. I haven't been sick in 5+ years!! Somehow daddy and I have managed to avoid all the colds and viruses. My first time being sick as a parent. Luckily I was only sick for 2 days.

We have continued to see Isaac's surgeon monthly to monitor his pooping. Things have been up and down, up and down. The x-rays have been all over the place.. good, not so good, ehh, lots of stool, ok, excellent, and anywhere in between. Largely in part because of him being sick on and off. It seems like whenever we get a good streak going he gets sick and then it messes everything up. We have had to hold the senna when he gets sick because it has caused some bouts of stomach upset. I didn't want to exasperate the issue with giving him senna on top of a sour stomach. We were having trouble getting him to drink the senna tea. It was getting hard to mix in with a smoothie because it would yield at least 8 oz mixed and trying to get a toddler to drink 8 oz in one sitting rarely happens. And that was causing some back up because he was not getting the full 3 oz dosing of the tea he needed. We decided about a month ago to start the senna medication. He only gets 2.5 ml's (1/2 teaspoon) a day. And it is such a minimal amount it does not throw off the taste of a smoothie or even a little juice. Makes it much easier to get him to drink. I can mix it in with 2 oz of a smoothie and he doesn't even notice. No more stressing about him drinking an 8 oz smoothie. He has tolerated it well. No complaints of stomach pain. Sometimes it can cause cramping for kids but he has seemed pretty solid on it. We haven't experienced any adverse issues. Which makes this easier. I was so concerned about giving him a daily "medication" but actually it has dimished my stress. I know he is pooping (a lot) and that's really what matters.

We continue to take him to the nutritional practitioner. He graduated off the 2 supplements she had him on before. Hooray!! They did their job and now at this point he doesn't need them. She did give us a new supplement called IBD Chord which I will talk about below. When he was in the hospital in January with a viral illness it caused some inflammation in his colon. This supplement helps decrease that and helps get things back to normal. She also had an alternative to using the senna medication which was an herbal supplement in capsule form. Which we were to open the capsule and mix it in with a drink or smoothie. I tried so many different things but because of it's strong herbal properties, I could not mask the taste. Isaac could taste it through anything and would not drink it.  Maybe if in the future he still needs help, we can revisit that option when he is older and understands. I will talk about it briefly below just in case it could help someone else.

I am hoping that the next x-ray will show progress. It is very stressful worrying about your child daily. I am really hoping for better days in the future. Right now we are just taking it day by day. I always remind myself this is just minor in reflection to what other families are dealing with. And for that, we are blessed.

Supplement info:

IBD Chord
IBD-Chord is a distinctive, complex blend of specific homeopathics combined to address the common causal factors behind Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Colon Clear capsules
Colon Clear combines several wildcrafted botanicals traditionally known to alleviate bloating, pressure, occasional constipation, and overall support for normal bowel function.