Diagnosis

Last friday I made the trip to Spokane to have one of Landens tests redone. He had the test done once here, but they recorded results wrong and in the end called the test incomplete. So his gastrointerologist wanted us to repeat the test up in Spokane. Marshall was out of town, but luckily my awesome sis was able to go with me to help out! His doctor called back Monday and we were told the test came back abnormal, and we finally had a diagnosis. I was so happy to finally have some answers about his spitting up.

So here's what we were told:

Landen has DGE, or delayed gastric emptying. During the test he drank some radioactive liquid, then was strapped to a table and they took x ray type pictures for an hour. For a normal kid, 30 minutes after eating a bottle the stomach should be about half empty. His half empty time is 168 minutes. So his food sits in his tummy for hours after eating. He has reflux along with this, and because the food sits there for so long he spits up hours after eating anything. For now we are starting him on meds that will help speed up digestion. Unfortunately at first it causes nausea and vomiting, so things will be worse before they get better. They will try these meds out for a month and see how it works for him. The meds are just a temporary fix, and they are also an antibiotic so I don't want him to have to be on them for too long.

We aren't really sure what this means in the long run yet. We just have to wait and see. Our hopes are that he will eventually grow out of it, but it's possible that he won't and that something more drastic would have to be done in the future to help fix the problem. As he gets older and starts solid foods it could also get worse, because solid food is harder to digest than formula, and could slow down his digestion even more. So for now, we just hope the meds help and that as he gets bigger his body will correct the problem on it's own.  We are grateful to have some answers and to finally move forward with getting some treatment. Pray that it works!