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Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Tummy Trouble Update

I was in high hopes after our appointment on Friday, but the Zantac has had absolutely no effect. Landon still has screaming fits during the day and continues to wake up every 2 hours at night to treat us to more screaming. I feel terrible for him and am starting to feel rather sorry for myself. We went back to the pediatrician today and she switched him to Pepcid and put him on hypoallergenic formula (Similac Allimentum). It's insanely expensive at about 2.5x what regular formula costs, but the proteins are already broken down so it's impossible to have any kind of negative reaction to it. She said we should see significant improvement within 48 hours. We also have an appointment with a pediatric GI specialist next week, but if he improves enough over the weekend we can cancel it. Next week also contains his pediatric urology appointment to hunt for his left testicle that's MIA. The poor guy- so many doctors, so much poking and prodding. Thank God for good health insurance. Our bills from the delivery and NICU have totaled over $35,000 and I'm sure these pediatric appointments and specialist consults aren't cheap either. We paid our family deductible earlier in the year thanks to all my check-ups, so we haven't had to pay a penny toward medical costs since June.

His weight is up to 11 lb. 8 oz., so physically he's capable of drinking 6 ounces at once and sleeping through a good portion of the night. Hopefully once his tummy troubles are under control he'll start working his way up to that. Waking up every 2 hours is killing us. It takes him over an hour to drink some of his bottle, scream a lot, and then settle back down, so we end up with about 45 minutes of sleep between wakings. Even with trading off, it adds up to very little rest. My classes start in 19 days and I can't imagine reading a case book right now.

With any luck, he'll be feeling much better soon and I can start writing about legal things- like the fact that I've accepted an offer, am registering for classes, and will be a 3L. At some point this blog will remember that it's a "blawg" and is supposed to be written by a mom who is also a law student :)

3 comments:

  1. Oh good good good. Alimentum saved my big girl and baby girl. Also, I discovered with baby girl last year that if she's medically required to have Alimentum, INSURANCE WILL COVER IT! Please look into this with your pediatrician. There has to be a medical reason..hers was blood in stool and there are some forms to fill out...which the doctor's office did and faxed it over to insurance company.

    Check into it...you may not have to pay for those $21-$29 cans!

    The formula started helping both girls within a day or two. The colic was still there but much less and disappeared far sooner for baby girl since I already had the same experience with big girl.

    Big girl suffered b/c I was comparing her to her twin who was fine on the regular formula.

    I recognized baby girl's symptoms on day 5 of birth and went in for the evaluation.

    It's just experience.

    Good luck. Thanks for being so good with the posting.

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  2. Aww.. I hope your little guy feels better soon!

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  3. Oh, crap. I was hoping that his troubles were over! Gripe water on the way, just in case!

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