GI - 2nd Opinion

On Wednesday, October 28, we headed to Walnut Creek to get a 2nd opinion from a gastroenterologist there on Caden's feeding and wretching issues as well as the possibility of changing him to a j-tube. Our GI doctor in Sacramento had suggested doing this as a possibility of reducing his wretching. That was at the end of August, but we wanted to get a second opinion before moving forward and it took us this long to get in with another doctor. We were referred to this one by our cardiologist.

However, by the time of the appointment, Caden's wretching had gotten significantly better. It seemed like once he was able to sit up by himself (right around the beginning of October), that the wretching really seemed to decrease. He went from having up to 20 episodes in a day down to maybe five. It was great. However, we still wanted to talk to another doctor and see what her thoughts were on the j-tube as well as Caden's overall GI issues.

She was great and spent an hour with us going over everything that Caden has going on. It was really nice to have someone take the time to do that. She felt that with the reduction of wretching, changing him to a j-tube would be unnecessary and a guessing game anyway. However she was surprised that Stanford didn't do a gastric emptying scan prior to doing the Nissen along with the g-tube. She highly recommended we get that done now. She said that could be part of the reason for all the wretching if his stomach has a slow time emptying. From what Greg and I could remember, it seemed like there were a couple tests Stanford has chosen not to do because they figured it wouldn't change their decision to do the Nissen, so why waste time and resources on them. But looking back, maybe we should have insisted they do one. Of course, hind sight is 20/20, right?

We are going to tweak his feedings a little bit based on her recommendations. So, at this time, we are not going to do a j-tube and we are going to contact our local GI doctor to order a gastric emptying scan so we can see what that shows. Of course, wouldn't you know that right after we saw the doctor on the 28th, Caden's wretching got worse again.

She suggested another option if the wretching didn't get any better, was to do an endoscopy and use a tool to dilate open the Nissen wrap. Basically stretch it out instead of going in surgically and undoing it. Apparently the surgical undoing is VERY rare and nobody is anxious to do that. So if it was necessary to do something, that could be an option but it doesn't sound very comfortable.

Anyway, we were glad to talk with another doctor to get another perspective. We just wish we could hurry up and get Caden eating by mouth so we could get rid of the g-tube altogether. Of course, he would still have the Nissen so he could still be wretching. Such is life, I guess. We'll keep you posted on any major changes in this area. Thanks for your continued prayers!

Out of curiousity, we were wondering if anyone was praying specifically for his wretching during the month of October since it was so much less during that time. If you were praying for that specific thing in that time period, can you post a comment to tell us? We would love to know if that was a factor. We certainly believe in the power of prayer!