Two Year Old Trickery.

Back on July 16th, Luke had a series of xrays of his upper GI and small bowels. They were looking for any irregularities that would explain his throwing up episodes. Fortunately (unfortunately ?) none were found so we were referred to Dr. Drew Kelts, a pediatric GI specialist down at Cottage Hospital down in Santa Barbara. More on that later.

Back to our xrays. Luke had to drink barium in order for them to watch his system digest. Ugh- that stuff is NASTY but we worked our darnest to convince our little friend that it was just a milkshake and tastes oh so good. He wasn't buying it so, being the egotistical toddler that he his, agreed to drink it as long as I took pictures of him. Our boy just loves the camera.

Nothing says refreshment like a radiocontrast agent. Imbibed while pant-less.

I took about 20 pictures that look exactly like this (red eyes from crying and all.) Whatever got him drinking we were will to do.


Since nothing was found to be wrong with his system (and he had 2 more episodes) we went down to visit with Dr. Kelts on July 28th.

His theory on Luke's episodes is interesting. He feels that Luke is experiencing migraines which is causing him to have this crazy disorder called "Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome." The literature he gave us briefly describes it as a "condition characterized by recurrent, prolonged attacks of severe nausea, vomiting, prostration with no apparent cause." Not a great diagnosis (it can last forever) but something for us to hang our hat on nonetheless. Or so we thought.

Dr. Kelts started Luke on Periactin which is an antihistamine. It's suppose to work as a blocker to the migraines therefore stopping the vomiting. 14 days after the last episode and 10 days into the meds- he got sick again (last Friday.) And it was exactly the same in severity.

So we discontinued the medicine for a few days (Luke developed a stutter but we're thinking the timing is just coincidental and it's just his brain working faster then his motor-mouth) but started back on Tuesday. We're going to ride this diagnosis out for a while but I'm going to pick our opthamologist's brain tomorrow. My new gut feeling is telling me that these episodes could possibly have something to do with motion sickness due to his crazy eye site. I could be WAY off base but I think I'm starting to get the hang of this Dr. Mom thing.

Stay tuned...