{"id":3323,"date":"2010-06-10T20:40:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-11T02:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/?p=3323"},"modified":"2010-06-11T05:40:52","modified_gmt":"2010-06-11T11:40:52","slug":"gi-update-a-balancing-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/10\/gi-update-a-balancing-act\/","title":{"rendered":"GI Update: A Balancing Act"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday was The Littlest Apple&#8217;s first GI appointment since his NG tube placement, so I figured I might share a little update.\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s been a while since I talked about the latest happenings with The Littlest Apple&#8217;s gastroparesis.<\/p>\n<p>Even though I didn&#8217;t share an update, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/30\/gi-update-phone-calls-galore\/\">we did finally get the pump and home health care<\/a>, about 2 weeks after the tube placement.\u00c2\u00a0 Due to the delay getting that started and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/20\/uncle\/\">the NG tube getting pulled out while we were on vacation<\/a>, we&#8217;ve only been administering the night-feeds for about 14 days total.<\/p>\n<p>At his appointment yesterday, The Littlest Apple weighed 24 pounds.\u00c2\u00a0 That&#8217;s a gain of 1.5 pounds in 2 months.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m guessing most of that has occurred in the last couple of weeks, since starting the night feeds.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/30\/gi-update-tube-time\/\">His gastric emptying study<\/a> showed that even with the newest medicine he&#8217;s taking, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Domperidone\">domperidone<\/a>, The Littlest Apple still has severely delayed gastric emptying.\u00c2\u00a0 That wasn&#8217;t exactly news to us.<\/p>\n<p>So, the night feeds have been going relatively smoothly.\u00c2\u00a0 Here are a few thoughts on that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>By smoothly, I mean that he&#8217;s not vomiting it all up, and not waking up too much at night. There have been some other issues I&#8217;ll discuss more in a minute.<\/li>\n<li>He has gotten tangled up in the tubing at night a few times, though not in a scary tubing-wrapped-around-his neck-sort-of-way, though that is a concern of mine since he&#8217;s a very squirmy sleeper.\u00c2\u00a0 I just go in, do a quick reset (the pump has an alarm on it that beeps when something goes wrong), and he goes back to sleep.<\/li>\n<li>Even though he&#8217;s more than old enough to be in a big-boy bed, he&#8217;s still in a crib for now because we don&#8217;t want him getting up and wandering off while still connected to his feeding pump.<\/li>\n<li>Normally an early riser, he&#8217;s waking up even earlier (if not in the middle of the night) because he has to go to the bathroom.\u00c2\u00a0 A logical result of &#8220;drinking&#8221; 10 ounces of liquid all night long.<\/li>\n<li>His daytime eating has decreased.\u00c2\u00a0 Most days he doesn&#8217;t eat more than a couple of bites of fruit or a pretzel stick or two before 3 pm.\u00c2\u00a0 He&#8217;s eating more at dinner though.\u00c2\u00a0 And since he&#8217;s gaining weight, I guess it still works out.\u00c2\u00a0 But obviously, the goal is for him to get used to eating more and discontinue reliance on the feeding tube.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m a little concerned on this front, but I guess we&#8217;ll get his weight up, <em>then <\/em>fight that battle.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now for the biggest change of all&#8211;The Littlest Apple&#8217;s behavior.\u00c2\u00a0 Since beginning the night feeds and increasing his caloric intake, his energy level has also increased.\u00c2\u00a0 Significantly.\u00c2\u00a0 And while this makes sense in most other children who weren&#8217;t previously getting enough calories, The Littlest Apple has NEVER <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/19\/just-a-little-head-butt-to-say-i-love-you\/\">been lacking in energy<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 While having a spirited, high-energy child has been challenging at times, I&#8217;ve come to embrace it and enjoy his extra zest for life.\u00c2\u00a0 But the last 2 weeks of night feeds also changed our previously spirited-but-happy-high-energy child to a complete unmanageable hyperactive, tantrum prone nightmare.\u00c2\u00a0 The last 2 weeks have been really awful.\u00c2\u00a0 Our parenting &#8220;A game&#8221; wasn&#8217;t enough.\u00c2\u00a0 We suspected The Littlest Apple was reacting to something in the Boost 1.5, but we weren&#8217;t sure what.\u00c2\u00a0 The third ingredient is SUGAR, but there are also a whole bunch of unpronouncable chemicals.<\/p>\n<p>We discussed this with the doctor, and big kudos to him, because he actually listened and observed.\u00c2\u00a0 He didn&#8217;t dismiss us by saying &#8220;well, I&#8217;d have lots more energy too, if I was getting the calories I needed,&#8221; which is what I&#8217;ve heard from several other people to whom I expressed my concern.\u00c2\u00a0 The doctor, who has already been somewhat taken aback by The Littlest Apple&#8217;s energy on prior visits (given his ill-fitting Failure To Thrive label) saw The Littlest Apple literally bouncing off the exam-room walls.\u00c2\u00a0 He suggested we try a different formula, and switched us to Compleat Pediatric, which contains pureed chicken, green beans, peas, peaches, and cranberry concentrate.\u00c2\u00a0 I can actually pronounce many of these ingredients, and honestly, it seems a little more wholesome to me.\u00c2\u00a0 Real food in pureed form.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, I will admit that the third ingredient of this one is corn syrup.\u00c2\u00a0 And there are a few less calories and fat grams per ounce.\u00c2\u00a0 But we&#8217;ve used this new formula for the last two days and seen a MARKED difference in The Littlest Apple&#8217;s behavior, and I don&#8217;t think it is just a coincidence.\u00c2\u00a0 We have our happy-spirited child back!\u00c2\u00a0 Thank goodness.\u00c2\u00a0 I can handle this boy.\u00c2\u00a0 <em>Usually.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/10\/gi-update-a-balancing-act\/\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday was The Littlest Apple&#8217;s first GI appointment since his NG tube placement, so I figured I might share a little update.\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s been a while since I talked about the latest happenings with The Littlest Apple&#8217;s gastroparesis. Even though I didn&#8217;t share an update, we did finally get the pump and home health care, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,67,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gastroparesis","category-medical","category-motherhood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3323"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3342,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3323\/revisions\/3342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}