Olive had an appt with ENT and speech pathology on Wednesday. They had a last minute cancellation, so we were able to get seen sooner than expected. She is having some issues with her eating, and things have not been improving. She basically gags/coughs/shrieks during some of her feedings. It's not consistent, and it doesn't really follow a pattern regarding time of day, etc. It's like her breathe/suck/swallow skills malfunction some of the time. We have been trying different nipples, making her formula thicker, different feeding positions. Her Pedi doesn't really think there is a huge issue at hand, but she gave us a referral to ENT anyway. The first part of our appt was with Speech. They did a lovely scope test where they thread a tiny scope the size of a spaghetti noodle into her nose and down her throat. She, of course, loved that. (as she sat on my lap). :(. Their goal was then to get her to drink from a bottle WHILE the scope was in there (yeah right), so they could essentially see her eat from the inside. She actually did it!! They didn't find any physical problems, but they could see on the film that she was indeed not successfully swallowing correctly every time. They aren't really sure why...she does have a very narrow nasal passage on one side, which causes loud "Pug-like" breathing sometimes, which likely isn't helping. They want her to have some sort of barium swallowing test, which they will call to schedule soon.
In the meantime though, they want us to thicken her formula with actual thickening powder you can buy. I have never heard of such a thing. We were just adding more formula, which as they pointed out was (obviously, DUH) causing probable GI troubles like constipation, as you can't just double the iron/protein to water ratio willy nilly. Not sure why we thought that would be fine! I think we were just thinking it would help her gain more weight (even though she's gaining weight just fine and weighs over 7 lbs now). We are also used to use an infant saline mist.
So we have tried the thickening powder with mixed results. It's so frustrating when she's having an "episode", as she's clearly hungry, but also uncomfortable and shrieking in pain or frustration.
Hopefully she will outgrow this, as adding more stress to feeding times especially in the middle of the night is not part of the game plan!
Here is a recent picture of Olive.
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5 comments:
She is so cute. LM had the barium swallow and has had a lot of the same issues. They always said he has reflux, which he does to some degree but he has a disorganized swallow as well. If you have any questions email me!
Isaiah has the same breathing/swallow/choking/gagging/coughing issues as Olive, sometimes. I figured it was just a developmental thing, that he hadn't gotten very coordinated yet. I'll be interested to see how this pans out with Olive. I obviously can't thicken my milk, since we don't give him bottles. I'm hoping he grows out of it.
She is adorable, by the way!
Having sucking issues over here too. Been feeding them on their sides which helps a lot to control the flow.
Aw poor little girl. I hope her eating gets better as she gets older. LD kind of has those issues now. He's never successfully drank from an open cup because he literally chokes every time he drinks. Sippies, straw cups, etc. I need to push to see an ENT with him too. I don't remember him having a problem with bottles though. She's so adorable!!
She IS adorable! Cutie cutie pie! Sorry to hear about the feeding issues though. That sounds not fun. :( As I was reading I was thinking that I would have done the exact same thing (increased the formula to thicken it). Dur. I hope things improve as she matures!
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