Upper GI

Seth had his upper-GI today, as well as a airway fluoroscopy. It was really cool to watch, really saw his airway going as he cried, and his lungs working. Then there was the GI part, when they gave him the barium in a bottle. It was incredible to really be able to see him sucking, swallowing, and watch the "food" go down into his belly. Basically there were no surprises at all. He does reflux a bit, but it doesn't go into his airway, which is good. He does have a bit of an issue with sucking, and he tends to aspirate a little into his nasal passageway, but nothing major. This we also knew, because he does spit up out of his nose. After the radiologist appt, we came home for a bit and then saw the pediatric pulmonologist again. Again, he was great. He basically went over what the results were, and what they really meant. Basically as far as his breathing goes, the refluxing is probably not the cause. He doesn't aspirate into his lungs, which is really good news. And he's been refluxing all along, and has only recently been wheezing. The reason he's aspirating a little into his nasal passageway is because of the way he sucks. He needs a little help getting that down right. The plan for this is to thicken his bottles with rice cereal. For each ounce, we use a teaspoon of rice cereal in his bottles, which will help with both the sucking/swallowing issue and his reflux. He goes back in a month to check his breathing. He was definitely wheezing a little as we were sitting there, and the doc listened to his lungs again, and agreed with me on the wheeze. It's thankfully not upsetting him much, which is the best case scenario. And as far as the cats go, for now we don't need to worry. But if he's not getting better after a month or two, we can worry about possibly testing him for allergens by blood draw and see if that gives us any answers. But apparently with babies, allergy testing isn't really very accurate. In the end, he believes that Seth has asthma. Whether it's here for the long run, or will disappear on it's own over the next few months, we don't know. It's a wait and see kind of thing. But he does still get to take his pul.micort every day for now.