GI Appintment

Last week we made a trip to OHSU to visit a GI doctor to address Rylee's reflux.  It really hasn't been too bad lately, other than a lot of spit up, but the appointment was scheduled over a month ago and was mostly just to rule out there being something more going on than normal reflux.  Her brother has been spitting up just as much as Rylee lately it seems.  He just hasn't had the previous eating problems and vomiting issues that Rylee has dealt with in the past.

At the initial visit last week, they weighed and measured Rylee.  She was 15 lbs, 2 oz.  She'd gained only a mere 3 oz in the last month.  I knew she wasn't eating enough because at 8 months old, she was only getting about 19-22 ounces a day in formula.  She also gets cereal and a veggie/fruit every morning, but that was about it.  The problem was that whenever we gave her more than 3.5 ounces at a time, she would spit up so much!  So we tried to feed her less at a time, but more often.  It just wasn't adding up to enough.  The GI doctor confirmed that.  Rylee should be getting 27 ounces of formula per day.  Geesh!  If that's the case, we definitely weren't feeding Ayden enough either!  He had been only getting 24-26 ounces per day.

The doctor explained that even though drinking more will make her spit up more, she would also be taking in more.  She told me about an experiment they had done, having people estimate how much liquid was spilled on a table and that every single person over guessed the amount.  What may seem like an entire bottle either being spit back up or vomited, in actuality isn't that much.

She ordered a test to be done that would allow them to see Rylee's esophagus.  This test would rule out a number of possible issues that Rylee could be dealing with, including whether or not she possibly had a hemangioma growing on her esophagus.  The doc didn't think that it was any more than normal reflux, but wanted to take a look to be sure.

This week we made the trek back up to OHSU for the test.  I had Ayden with us also, but he couldn't be in the room with us while they ran the test.  They were super nice about it and had a tech stay with Ayden in a small room adjacent to us, with the door open.

They had Rylee lay on an x-ray table and drink a few ounces of barium from a bottle.  As she was drinking, they had a monitor that showed the barium moving through her esophagus, into her stomach, and exiting her stomach.  Rylee wasn't a fan of the big box thingy surrounding her.  She was also starving because she couldn't eat or drink anything for three hours prior to the test.  Every time she would cry, I could also hear Ayden start fussing from the other room.  He was starving as well.  I couldn't feed him and not Rylee!  That would NOT have gone over very well.

The test showed that everything looked normal.  It also showed a visual of Rylee's reflux because you could see it trying to come back up.  Basically, now we just wait for her to hopefully outgrow of it!  I'm very glad that nothing more is wrong, but I sure do wish there was a solution to stop the spit up!

When we were all done, they let me stay in the room to change both babies diapers.  I hate using the fold down tables in the public bathrooms!  It just seems so gross, so I try to avoid it as much as possible!  Then we went back out to the lobby, both Ayden and Rylee finally got their bottles, and then we were on our way home again!

Ayden and Rylee in the stroller without their car seats!  They are big kids now!

I love her blue eyes!

His smile melts me!