Monday, September 28, 2009

Our First Un-Expected Doctor's Trip

I think most of you know that Emma has struggled with constipation issues since she was about 2 months old. We thought we had found the answer by giving her 2 ounces of pear juice every other day. About 3 weeks ago that stopped working. We upped the amount of juice, and when that didn't work we moved on to prune juice. Even with getting prune juice 3 days in a row, no poop. In fact she has only pooped 3 times in the last 3 weeks and all 3 we had to give her either an enema or a suppository for her to go. After all 3 of us were in tears last night, we thought it was time to call the doctor.
I placed a call to the doctor at 8am this morning. I had done some reading about constipation the night before, so I wasn't to worried about the situation. I expected the doctor's to call back and suggest switching formulas, adding water, or even adding a softener. I wasn't expecting them to tell me that they wanted to see her today. This was the point in my day that I wished I didn't have my medical background. The first thing that popped in my mind was "should I pack a bag? " (in case they made us go to the hospital) I even asked the scheduler on the phone if I needed to bring anything or do anything differently! I know, I know. I was being ridiculous. Of course they wanted to see her. There is nothing normal about a baby only being able to poop with the help of enemas. And I knew it shouldn't be anything serious because her poops weren't bloody, she hadn't been throwing up, her belly didn't hurt to touch, she wasn't bloated, and was eating just fine. I had just heard to many stories from my families at the hospital that they "thought it was just a cold". I kept repeating the symptoms she didn't have all the way to the doctors. I need to turn this part of my thinking off, or it is going to be a long 18 (longer) years!
So of course everything is just fine. The doctor said that some babies/people just have a hard time with this. Their bodies absorb every last drop of water which is why they get constipated. So the solution we try now is giving her miralax everyday. We have to play around with how much to give her, but once we figured that out, it should do the trick. They even told us how to do a "clean out" using the miralax in case she gets constipated again because they really don't want us to use the enemas or suppositories but once in a blue moon.
If it works, this is something we will probably have to carry on through out her childhood. But hey if it works, it works! Once she starts eating, I am going to also make sure she eats a lot of food high in fiber, bran, and fruits. Then maybe she won't need the miralax any more. I'll keep you posted on how things are going!

2 comments:

mombrackin said...

Sweetheart, Welcome to being a mom.

And trust me it goes longer then 18yrs.

I love you.

Mom

bcolby said...

Glad everything is OK. No fun when your baby doesn't feel good!