Whopper with Cheese

So I need to give this blog a big update. Bigger than the whopper before.

So Xander had tons of ultrasounds, x-rays and various other tests over the past few days. When we first got there, they thought maybe part of his intestines had collapsed, so they sent him for an air enema. Other than some excessive tooting, Xander handled the enema fine. I'm glad it wasn't painful because a collapsed intesting was not his problem.

So after the collapsed intestine was ruled out, the next step was an MRI to look at his GI tract. They wanted to see if there was a blockage. He was NPO and had to drink this awful contrast. They took him to have an MRI done. Nothing came from it. Everything looked good.

Next was a scope. They wanted to get in there and look at things with the naked eye and then take some biopsies. He had an endoscopy and a colonoscopy to look at his entire GI tract. They did some inflamation in the esophagus but nothing significant. Everything else looked good.

We had to wait for the results over the weekend which totally stinks when you're anxious to know what is going on.

Finally Monday came and the doc said they didn't come up with anything significant but there were a few eosinophils in his esophagus and colon...right where they shouldn't be. Eosinophils are linked to allergies and in Xander's case, food allergies. Well, that made sense seeing how he was having severe diarrhea. It was hard to determine just by his symptoms. Usually with food allergies you get hives, swelling in the face, vomitting, eczema, something to indicate there is an allergy present. This didn't happen with Xander.

So a RAST test was done. He showed up positive for diary and eggs which we already know. He also tested positive for wheat, soy, walnuts, peanuts and corn. Ugh. The good news is it is he is slightly allergic, not full blown anaphyllactic allergic. However it doesn't matter, meaning we have to take certain foods out of his diet to see if he gets better. So for now he is now restricted from having dairy, eggs, wheat, soy and fish/shellfish. haha It's so sucky I have to laugh. Looks like we'll be eating a lot of rice around here.

The interesting news is this isn't about Xander, it's about his medication. His tacrolimus (immune suppression drug) is causing all of this as cited here, here, here and here. I have a few more studies but that would be over kill. Eventually we'll be looking at a new immune suppression drug called sirolimus. A few kids have switched drugs and have either gotten rid of their allergies or greatly reduced the number of allergies they have. But that will be further down the road.

For now we attack the problem as everyone else would. Strip his diet down and hope he starts doing better. I'm keeping my fingers crossed because he has lost a lot of weight. My two year old just barely weighs 24lbs. Not good. He needs at least two pounds to get on the charts at the low end.

I hope by stripping his diet we'll get him back up to where he needs to be and then some. I don't want him clinging to the bottom of the weight chart. I want him thriving.