GI Appointment

I took Natalie to see a GI Specialist at Nemours Children's Hospital today. After she got weighed and measured (she's two feet tall - how fun!), I met with the doctor. He was really, really great. He poked around on Natalie's stomach a bit and checked her rear end to make sure there wasn't any blood in her rectum. She was NOT a fan of the bum-check and immediately started crying. I can't blame her though - I know I wouldn't like it if someone messed with my bum.

I described what we've seen from Natalie and he was extremely sympathetic, nodding in all the right places. He said that there are three main reasons (the 'three Ps') to do GI tests on kids. The first is pounds. Natalie's not losing weight, so that reason doesn't apply to her (she's a slow weight gainer, but at least she's not losing weight). I think the second reason is pneumonia (contracted from spitting up so much). Thankfully we can cross that off the list, too. The third 'P' is pain. Ding, ding ding! We have a winner!

The doctor wants us to take Natalie to get some blood work done. That'll rule out anything such as anemia. Then he wants Natalie to get an upper GI done. This won't check for any evidence of severe reflux, but it will check to make sure that everything is working properly when she swallows. It checks for any leaks, kinks, or anything else abnormal. If that's clear, then he'll recommend that she get an upper endoscopy to check for signs of severe reflux. The major downside to that is that she'll have to be sedated. The thought our munchkin being sedated is tough.

So here's my thought: We'll get Natalie's blood work done and it'll take up to a week to get the result. Once we have the result, I should get a call from the hospital within a week after that to schedule her upper GI. I imagine it'll be a week (if not more) before she can be seen for the upper GI. It'll take a few days to a week to get those results. Then we'll schedule her upper endoscopy, which will probably be a week or two out.

So by the time she finally gets her endoscopy done, she'll probably be five months old, at which time she would have grown out of her reflux anyway. Hmph.

How about this idea? She gets blood work done tomorrow, an upper GI on Wednesday, and an upper endoscopy on Thursday?

I'm kidding, of course - that'd be a rough three days for a baby. But I hope there's some happy medium between having these procedures spread out over three days or three months.