Pediatrician Call

I'm really impressed with our new pediatrician. She called me twice with Karston's lab results. Yes, the doctor called me! I called her back this afternoon. Karston's blood work was all normal enough, but we may want to re-test thyroid in a month. She asked if reflux might explain Karston's poor appetite and consequent small size, and that really started me going. She said to start with children's Maalox, so we will. Before I told her that he often eats only one food at a time, sometimes only one food per meal (and rarely snacks between meals), she said that reflux children often do not like texture changes. That describes Karston perfectly, and then I was really on a roll. Karston won't eat egg yolks when he eats hard-boiled eggs because it's too much of a texture change. I've been thinking about it all day, and I can only come up with two foods that he eats with more than one texture. He will eat chocolate-coated doughnuts and bread with jelly. I think he'll eat the starch just to get the sweet treat. So that reflux guess of hers just sounded as reasonable as possible, especially with her suggesting a dietary characteristic before I mentioned Karston does that. (So thank goodness for the first pediatrician being on vacation; I'm keeping this one!)

Since I was talking to her, I complimented her on the allergic colitis diagnosis for Cale. After two days dairy-free (meaning I didn't eat dairy products to transfer to Cale), he was a differently pooping baby, and happy about it too. It's hard to avoid dairy; I ate a small amount of cheese yesterday for lunch (and had to pick some cheese off my lunch today, but hopefully I removed enough). Guess what? Cale was a lot more uncomfortable today after I ate dairy yesterday, and he reverted back to the old poop pattern. It wasn't much cheese, I'm surprised it set him off, so I need to be much more vigilant. This is going to wreak havoc on my lactase levels since I barely produce enough for as much as I love cheese and yogurt. If I eat zero of those foods for as long as Cale's nursing and he nurses over two years like Karston, I may never be able to eat dairy after that either. It's worth it for Cale to be more comfortable, though. It's also possible that Cale has more than one allergy. I had had a lot of soy the day before one very fussy day, and I had had a lot of eggs before two other fussy days. I wouldn't rule those out entirely either. But before this pediatrician suggested that I eliminate dairy from my diet, I had some every day. So perhaps I should have be surprised he had good days!

Anyway, she suggested a followup visit in a month, and I think I'm a convert. She's sharp and caring.