Okay here goes! I’m trying to figure all this out with looks, fonts and such- so bear with me (if anyone would even actually read this!!)!!!! HA
I am a Mom to 5 beautiful children. I homeschool the 2 older ones right now with the third to start in the fall. I’ve always been amazed that home schoolers can post so much and read so much on blogs. My day starts with kids and ends at their bedtime when I collapse on the couch in exhaustion. (Thank the Lord for an incredible and supportive husband who not only puts up with it but embraces all of it and us!) BUT, 4 of the 5 kids are at Nana’s house for a couple of days. So, I get to neglect housework (oops!) and try starting something.
I’d like to get the word out on this blog about a lot of things- but the first one is about Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome or abdominal migraines. My 7 year old was diagnosed a couple of years ago- but getting to that diagnosis was a battle.
It all started when she was just around 2. She would start vomiting out of the blue. There were no signs of viruses around the house. Usually the episodes would start in the morning. She would then proceed to vomit every 1/2 hour to an hour for sometimes 2 days but usually 3. She would then perk right up and be eating, drinking and playing- usually within an hour or two of beginning her sips of pedialyte or water. In the beginning, we’d go 6-8 weeks and then it would all happen again. Now, the other kicker in all this, her first episode would begin end of February or beginning of March. But then everything would stop end of September or October. We didn’t notice too much the first year (little slow on the uptake)! But when it started again the next year and we began to have to have her hospitalized for dehydration- I finally began to question what in the world was going on. Our dr. at the time did a great job of taking care of her when she was sick. She kept getting throat infections or ear infections afterwards because of all the vomiting. So, we would write it off as she got an infection that made her start vomiting. Well, we survived another year and enjoyed the time with her healthy. In this time we added another baby to the family. Things were so busy that life just took over and we just kept dealing with her being sick. We got real good at controlling the vomiting early and learning the signs of when an episode was going to take place. Because we thought that maybe the vomiting was beginning because of a throat infection, I finally began checking her throat periodically. When I saw it begin to swell just a bit I immediately took her in to a new doc. We had just moved- new perspective helped. It was the oddest visit. The doc walked in. I did about a 2 minute explanation of what we’d been through for the past couple of years. He said I think she has cyclical vomiting syndrome or abdominal migraines. Let’s put her on Topamax- a seizure drug used for migraines and see what happens. He’s saying the end of this while walking out the door pretty much. (We knew him from church so that helped.) We started her on the medication after researching some of the side effects (which no one really knew because it hadn’t been tested with kids). The vomiting episodes almost stopped for about 6 months. We started having some episodes a bit more regularly a little bit late in the fall. The doc increased the dosage and we have been doing well since. She still will go into a prolonged vomiting spell if she gets a stomach virus that causes her to throw up.
I still have concerns. What will the Topamax do to her in the long run? Will she outgrow this? Is there a root cause of this? Good it be diet related? We are looking at perhaps taking her off the drug in the fall to judge a bit what’s causing this or to see how it’s affecting her. The biggest challenge with that is- insurance won’t cover anything with it because it’s pre-existing. So, there are financial considerations to look into as well. If anyone out there has a child with similar problems, I’d love to hear your story. Maybe together we can gain some insight into this.
