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V had seen an Ear, Nose , Throat doctor (Otolaryngologist) because she had very large tonsils. She’s been referred for a sleep study several times. I kind of blew it off like, “she sleeps fine”. Her large tonsils aren’t particularly causing her any problems at this point. Benny has also seen the Otolarynologist because of his frequent ear infections and very large tonsils. Remember when he was choking on and refusing to take solids or mixed texture foods? Although he has not had enough ear infections to qualify for tubes, which I find difficult to believe, we continue to follow up with them in case this may change. The MD kept talking about him getting a sleep study because of his big tonsils. Again, I was doubtful because he is 20 months old! P offered to take him (wow – awesome) and so he did. Attached are some pics from the sleep study. You show up at the unit around 7:30, and basically sleep there, hooked up to all the stuff. It took them 45 minutes to hook him up to the electrodes and wires. They monitor brain activity, oxygen saturation, heart rate, and many other things. He did not like it, oh no he didn’t. He slept there just over eight hours with Paul in the room in a recliner and then they came home the next morning. P had to give him a bath because of the sticky stuff in his hair, but it went fairly well. Except for the 45 minutes of screaming of course.
Well, you know where I am going with this. I saw his results last week and he has Moderate Obstructive Sleep Apnea. His tonsils and adenoids are blocking his air flow significantly. He had something like 57 apneas in 8 hours with 37 lasting longer than 10 seconds. His O2 sats dropped to the low 90’s each time. Poor, poor baby. I read that can be responsible for falling off the weight charts. His body burns so many calories trying to breathe at night.
Now what? I am very, very reluctant to do a tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy on a 21 month child. So are they. He can’t really use CPAP, do they even make them for tots that small? We have the next available consult on Feb 10th and we will see what is going on. Oh, and as a result of this, V is scheduled for a sleep study too. I feel silly for blowing it off. Maybe it would explain some of her behavioral quirks? Is tonsillectomy x 2 in our future? P has no tonsils or adenoids. They used to chop them out of everyone in the 60s and 70s routinely. I still do. My tonsils are big.
4 comments:
jen! we are dealing with a little of this, too!! t is kind of stair stepping on the growth chart and has not gained ANY weight since his 4 year well visit. one of the things they talked about was the fact that his tonsils are so big! we need to pow wow!!
I don't know if you have done anything with this since it has been a while, but take the tonsil thing very seriously!!! They can cause sleep disturbances and those can lead to ADD like symptoms, bad behavior, everything you'd think would happen if you weren't getting enough sleep at night. We had Audrey's tonsils removed because of large tonsils. Didn't even have to do a sleep study she was at 4+ on their largeness scale and the UM peds oto guy took one look at said they would schedule it. She was 5 and did great.
We were involved with a study at UM about this issue. Not enough people know it is a problem.
Also, I read you posted something about encopresis. Audrey had trouble too and sent to a specialist at UM peds gastro. Ended up having to use Miralax for many years (she is finally off of it) but it worked great and was the only way to keep her system moving along. We didn't have to use much of the stuff, but we did have to until about a year ago or less.
ok there is my kid advice for this year ;)
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