Another cycle, getting bad November 18, 2008

I was called by the daycare this morning and they reported that Sam was complaining of nausea and has a fever.  They say he was fine one minute and it came on suddenly the next.  I went and picked him up and called the pediatrician’s office.  Unfortunately the pediatrician who has been working on this is off today…..uggh….can it get any worse!!

After an hour at least they call back and one of the other docs had called in some zofran for his nausea.  He was his usual pale, limp and inactive self.  But luckily he was back to normal about 30 min after the zofran and he never actually vomited this time.  Whew!! 

Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome November 17, 2008

Today Samuel was seen at the pediatricians office and evaluated for the vomiting.  His neurological exam and the rest of the exam were normal so the pediatrician believes he may have a disorder called cyclic vomiting syndrome (CVS).  He is going to consult with the local pediatric GI group for guidance and call us back within the week.

Frequent vomiting November 14, 2008

Today we got the first indication that Samuel’s vomiting may be more than we thought it was.  He is our little vomiter.  He gets the stomach bug quite often….or so we thought.  It isn’t anything that we can mark a calendar by but it happens quite a bit.  Much more than the other two kids.  We were pretty proud of ourselves as parents because we figured we were doing super great handwashing by keeping it away from the other kids.  Maybe not!

Last month he had an episode that lasted 36 hours and he was on the verge of being hospitalized.  He saw the pediatrician in the evening for the vomiting and a respiratory infection.  They said that if he didn’t stop overnight he would be admitted that next morning for hydration.  Luckily he stopped about 2 hours after seeing them.

Today another episode.  This one prompted a call to the on-call pediatrician as the first episode of vomit had flecks of blood in it.  Among other things we spoke of how often he actually “gets the stomach bug” (my words).   The pediatrician stated that it is much too frequent for this to be the stomach bug and that he wanted to see him on Monday once this episode was over as long as he didn’t get dehydrated with it. 

That I can think of he has had 5 episodes in the last 6 months.  They all just happen to be on dates that I can remember such as Mother’s Day and my birthday along with a few other important dates.  Those are only the ones I can think of.  I know there are more. 

All of his episodes are very similar too.  They involve intense vomiting.  And I mean INTENSE.   Repeated vomiting episodes, several per hour all total lasting from 4-36 hours.  He is pale & lethargic.  Lays on the couch like a limp rag.  Almost like he can do nothing else but lay there.  He always has a fever around 101 (my reasoning for thinking stomach bug).  He sometimes complains of a headache but not always.  And lastly within a day of the episode he always has a mucoid stool. 

This one seems to be over for now.  On to the pediatrician we go on Monday for his evaluation.