Abby's Visit with the GI Specialist

Everything went really well at the doctor's apt today. The doctor who saw us was a specialist in cases like this and has often worked with babies like Abby before. He did a really thorough medical history and tested her stool for blood. The doctor confirmed the diagnosis of a milk-soy protein allergy and said that he is not even completely sure she has acid reflux. It is possible that she is simply allergic to something else still (which we have been suspicious of). From this point, he wants to run 3 more diagnostic tests to see what we need to do next. She's scheduled to have an endoscopy and a sigmoidoscopy to take biopsies in her intestines to make sure these "flareups" are not causing any serious damage. If they're not, we just know I need to keep doing what we are doing and that the allergy is not severe enough to eliminate anything else from my diet. If there is inflammation or damage, I have to go on an even stricter diet to try to narrow down the allergen, which includes eliminating dairy/soy/wheat/eggs/nuts/shellfish for 2 weeks then slowly reintroducing them back in. The last test that we will have done( which will be on the same day as the other tests) is they will stick a tube down Abby's nose and into her stomach for 24 hours to measure the acidity of her stomach acid when she is not on her medicine. If her stomach acid is normal, we'll know acid reflux is not the problem. If it is too acidic, we'll know for sure how much medicine she needs from that point on. He's also going to do a blood test to make sure that the Prevacid dose she is on now is safe and has not had any negative side effects in her system. All of this is scheduled to happen on May 20th. We're thankful that we should have definite answers soon, but a little nervous that this is the only way we can find out what is going on. We'll just pray that everything will go smoothly and that Abby will be safe with the endoscopy and sigmoidoscopy. Thanks for wanting to keep up with what is going on.