Since starting Lochlan on Cyproheptadine, he has improved. He mostly only vomits in the morning, and rarely vomits at night. We haven't tried to give him a bolus feed yet, but he seems to be doing well with the continuous feed. The medication makes him drowsy, so he has also been sleeping better. If his kangaroo pump didn't alarm at 4am, he would probably sleep better. Unfortunately, the medication will stop working after a while, so we may need to take him off of it and put him back on it intermittently. I also can't stop worrying about how it is affecting his body.
Because the medication is working well on Lolchlan, it leads me to believe that he has slow gastric emptying or gastroparesis. The GI doctor still wants him to continue taking Prilosec, and has recommended a swallowing video using barium dye. Lochlan has had his fair share of radiation, so we think that we will refuse the test. We would like to at least meet with a speech pathologist and discuss Lochlan's issues. Every speech pathologist that I have met is exceedingly knowledgeable and dedicated to their work. If a speech pathologist agrees and thinks that the swallowing video is necessary, then we will go ahead with it. The other test that Lochlan's surgeon recommended is an X-ray of the stomach and small intestine after dye is injected into his feeding tube. I am actually very interested in seeing what that would show, but again, I'm not keen on exposing Lochlan to more radiation. I'm also not so sure that Lochlan could keep a belly full of dye down, and the test would just be useless. It's a catch-22, but I'm set on doing what's best for Lochlan. Lochlan will see the GI doctor on Thursday. I'm praying that she will listen to what we want for Lochlan and work with us, instead of against us.
No comments:
Post a Comment