#1 had his follow up with the allergist today and we got some interesting news. His blood tests came back totally negative to everything except grass pollen (which we thought he was allergic from the prior skin tests) ... but even the grass pollen was a mild reaction when looking at his blood. In addition his total allergen count was very low - a 10 on a 0-352 scale. So he is only mildly allergic which makes no sense when you look at how he reacted to grass pollen last spring. But she firmly stated he is not a candidate for shots given this information, so I didn't have to tell her thank you, but no thank you ... a conversation I've been dreading for days. SO ... the investigation continues. The allergist, who is a long time pediatric allergist and one that I really like - one who I think is very good, thought for a good deal of time and went back through all of her notes and my spreadsheets while #1 smashed cars into each other in the exam room. Her conclusion was that we were missing something ... "he shouldn't react that severely or have been so sick" if there wasn't something else going on. She thought he might have a "silent" sinus infection - one that apparently just hangs out and waits for something to upset the system, like pollen when you're allergic, then rears its ugly head and causes all hell to break loose. OK, made sense to me. However the only way to know is to look at the sinuses on film. So we were off for #1s first and hopefully last head CT scan.
The scan itself wasn't that big of a deal. It just weirds me out. He did great. The tech was great with him. It was all over in about 45 seconds. We took the images straight back to the allergist and she read them with me. It is very clear in the images that one of his sinus cavities is completely full of goop. The other is open, but has a little goop in it also. So we're treating with a long course of antibiotics and a nasal spray and saline and a neti pot. :) East meets West, yet again. This reminds me of my sophomore year of college when I couldn't get rid of tonsillitis and ended up being on antibiotics for weeks. Only the difference there was that I was never sleeping, drinking way too much, and being a typical college kid. #1 likes a party, but let's be serious. The kid is not boozing it up all night ... he's really in great health if we can just figure this thing out ...
I've been emailing with #1s Chinese Medicine doc and have filled him in on everything. He's skeptical of the antibiotics and I am a little myself (because for the LOVE - he's been on them ... many rounds of them and still has something going on). But then again, I grew up on pink medicine as a little person and am just fine now. But, his thought is that something this chronic is probably fungal (ew!) and not bacterial. Good thing #1 is also taking herbs and getting acupuncture to cut the funk.
1 comment:
Poor little Mini! Good thing his mama is so open to all the options. The only thing worse than hacking through something is watching your little one hack through it and feeling helpless to help. Good luck, I hope it gets figured out soon!
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