GI Specialist Appointment

We finally had Kaylie's appointment with the GI specialist today - after an on-going problem with diarrhea for about 5 weeks now!! It went really good and the Dr we saw was great. She was very thorough and explained things really well. Jaycie of course went with me and Kaylie and did great, too.

There are basically 4 possible diagnoses, with the first one being a possibility of infection that caused the diarrhea initially by damaging the micro villi in her intestinal tract and/or disrupting the "good" bacteria load in her intestines. We're starting her on some probiotics to help establish the "good" bacteria. This is really the diagnosis we are hoping and praying for.

The next possibility is the inability to digest milk proteins which she didn't really think that was it because there has not been any blood in her stool and she is too happy of a baby for your typical lactose intolerance baby. So I might get my milk back soon!!!!! In moderation of course!

She ruled out a third possibility - I don't remember exactly what it was - too much information in too little time!!

The 4th and scariest possibility is malabsorption which can be caused by 3 or 4 different things. The 1st was infection again, the 2nd was a lack of enzymes in her intestinal tract (something she could have been born with), the 3rd I don't remember and the fourth was cystic fibrosis. That scared me right away, as soon as she wrote it down (she was writing all of this in a little chart form on the exam table paper with illustrations of the intestinal tract). There is no history of CF in either of our families and she said it is a very minimal chance, but.............it is still very scary to hear. She said CF babies tend to have other problems and are generally labeled with failure to thrive. So we will pray that this is not the diagnosis!!

Kaylie at her 4 month check up hadn't gained quite the weight the Dr wanted to see and only weighed 11 pounds 4 ounces, but today Kaylie gained a little more weight and is up to 12 pounds!! So we have to do some more collections and testing, but hopefully we will have some definite answers next week.

On another note, here is our happy little girl in her little saucer for the first time. She liked sitting up and being able to spin around and look around. Her busy little fingers were checking out all the little toys on it!