Parker had his two year doctor's appointment yesterday and I was eager to discuss my suspected gluten intolerance with our family doctor. I worried all week how I was going to word it just right so my doctor wouldn't just shake his head at me like he tends to do. He's not the most supportive doctor, or at least he hasn't been when I switched my maternity care to a midwife when I was pregnant with Sophie. Methinks he was a tand offended.
I wrote all of my concerns for Parker so I could bring it with me. I tend to get flustered and forget everything I want to discuss. My concerns and possible symptoms were:
~ reflux up until around 1 year
~ delayed in speech development
~ Mucousy, acidic BMs up to 6 times per day
~ Often undigested foods in BMs
~ VERY fussy, cries a lot
~ Poor sleeping
~ Gassy
~ Horrid, open sores and welts kind of diaper rashes.
~ seems to have an intolerance to citrus as it will worsen his symptoms after eating.
Now imagine my surprise when my doctor agreed with me that it was most likely an inolerance to gluten!! He offered to have him tested for Celiac but I decided not to as it's a blood test and I don't want to put him through that. Instead we agreed to stick with a GF diet and check back with the doctor in 6 months. He said that sometimes it could also be an allergy to dairy but since our GF diet seems to be showing improvments already to stick with this. He also said that often a child will outgrow a sensitivity so we'll see.
So YAY that all went well... until my doctor started talking about his poor sleeping and crying. I wasn't so much looking for solutions to his nightime wakings as it doesn't really bother me, I just thought it was important for him to know and I've heard that it can sometiems be related to Celiac disease. He offered suggestons but then about the crying, he threw his hands up and said that Parker looked happy and healthy so he didn't know what to say. I was starting to get frustrated because this is what he said when I brought him in at 2 weeks, 6 weeks, 3 months, etc etc about his constant crying. Seriously my poor little man has spent the first year of his life crying and while it's not as often as before it's still abnormal, imo. All my doctor kept saying all those months was that he's healthy and maybe I was just overwhelmed and that caring for a baby was harder than I expected. Ummm.... I have been working with children and babies for 10 years and Parker is my second child. I think I knew exactly what to expect from caring for a newborn and baby. And yesterday he was starting to say the same thing, that because he looked healthy and happy (in the 10 minutes we were in his office he determined that since Parker wasn't crying then that he was a happy child who doesn't cry anymore than other toddlers!!) he didn't know what to say. I could feel myself getting angry and wasn't ready to argue with my doctor so I got up and told him I was leaving. I was at the door when I turned around, crying at this point, and just let all my frustrations with the care my family has been recieving from him in the past two years and how insulted I was by how he handled my concerns over my child's crying.
He apologized and gave me a referral to see Parker's old paediatrician again whom I really like. So hopefully he can give us some answers.
In the meantime, we're sticking with our GF diet and looking for a new family doctor!
No comments:
Post a Comment