*Update- everything went well today. The hardest part was not allowing him to eat. He was starving and miserable, but the procedure went quickly. The doctor said his larynx looked "beefy" as opposed to light pink- meaning it is irritated, most likely from the reflux. He prescribed Zantac. It could take a few weeks to work. The challenge is now getting Owen to take the Zantac. It has an awful minty taste and it took us over an hour to get him to take it tonight. Lots of tears. Not the battle I want to fight every night. Hopefully it gets easier and he gets used to it. We should get his allergy test results back in a week. I'm interested to see what it shows.
(I'm writing this more for myself so I have everything written down in one place- it may be boring to most people. So many times I've gone back to my blog to find answers to things dealing with my kids and important dates. It's very convenient:)
Owen started a seasonal cough in 2010. It came on, lasted a few months, and then suddenly disappeared. I'm not sure what we tried that year to cure it, but I do know that nothing worked and I was just relieved when it finally went away.
It came back again in 2011 around the same time- late October. It lasted another couple months (I think until January-ish). Our pediatrician thought it was an allergy of some sort since it came on every year at the same time and fall allergies are really common. Here are the things we tried... removing all stuffed animals (very allergenic), mold test in Owen's room and basement, Nebulizer, inhaler (Pulmacort), Claratin, chest x-ray, Allegra, Zertec. By the time we tried everything it had disappeared.
Here we are in 2012 and the cough came back October 24th. It was Owen's last soccer game and I heard that all-too-familiar sound... clearing his throat and dry hacking cough. Ugh. I knew what we were in for. It has been REALLY bad. We called the doctor after a few weeks and he told us to try Claratin again. That didn't work. Right before our trip to St. John I called to say we were concerned and thought Dr. S should listen and make sure he wasn't wheezing before going on our trip. He told us he wanted us to get a chest x-ray. It came back clear and Dr. S could only hear one little wheeze when he listened to his breathing. He told us to try the Pulmacort inhaler and take it with us to St. John. He also said we could try Singulair, but he wanted to wait to see if it went away while in St. John. Since we all thought it was some sort of allergy we were SURE it would disappear while in St. John since he was in a completely different environment. We were shocked when his cough didn't go away. We would have bet a lot of $$ that it would have gone away. I'll never forget when we took the boys for icecream while on our trip and Owen was coughing like crazy and the guy working behind the counter politely told him that he's going to have to cover his mouth and handed him a pile of napkins. We feel badly taking him to Sunday School, parties, and places where there's other people because we're afraid they are going to be upset that we brought our "sick", coughing kid.
The fact that it didn't go away in St. John led Mike and I to believe that it was not allergy related, but then were left with the question as to what it was and why it occurred at the same time every year. Dr. S told us to try Singulair (asthma medicine) which we weren't all that thrilled about since we didn't think it was an allergy or asthma. We were also to continue the inhaler. The inhaler wasn't working. All it did was make him hyper. I was nervous about the Singulair too because of some scary side effects. We did one dose of Singulair and after that he got a stomach ache and didn't eat much for two days. I didn't want to give him his second dose because he wasn't eating.
This past week was especially bad. Bedtime has been a nightmare. Owen ends up crying himself to sleep because he is so frustrated that he can't stop coughing. He starts to panic. We tried so many different things. Mike and I feel so helpless and desperate. It's tortuous to listen to... I can't imagine how Owen must be feeling.
Tuesday we got a 2nd opinion. I sent Mike with a long list to show the ENT doctor. I had done a lot of research and thought it could be laryngopharyngeal reflux. When the dr. read that he said that is exactly what he thinks it is. He doesn't want to treat it until he is sure though. The one thing we have found to cure his cough for at least a few minutes is a cough drop so we were giving him a lot of them. We found out that they are really bad for people with reflux and it only makes the reflux worse. We are also changing his diet and avoiding foods that cause reflux.
So tomorrow Owen will be put to sleep and they will put a camera up his nose and down his throat to see what's going on and if any damage has been done from reflux. They are also going to do allergy testing. We are happy to be heading in the right direction, but nervous about Owen being put to sleep and scared they may find something else more serious wrong with him. I'm sure they won't, but that thought has crossed our minds.
My next post will be about the fun Christmasy things we've been doing around here, but I wanted to write this down.
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