Wednesday, July 8, 2009

"No More Dirty Nose, Mommy"

Much to my dismay, Christian has been the kid with the constant yucky nose for over 5 months now. He's been on 4 courses of antibiotics, and various allergy medicines. Despite all the medicine, it would always come back.

We made an appointment with our wonderful ENT, and after one look up his nose, he diagnosed the problem. Christian has infected and enlarged adenoids which need to be removed. He explained that having them removed will not only help the nose issue, but help with his mouth breathing and sleep disturbances that we've been experiencing. He even suggested that while we aren't worried about his speech, having his adenoids removed could help pronunciation. The surgery is outpatient, but requires general anesthesia (which of course makes me nervous). The recovery time is fast, and the complications are rare.

I'm very angry that the possibility of an adenoid issue was never brought up to me by my pediatrician. You would think that after treating a kid 4 times with antibiotics that it would be a red flag. I really love our pediatrician, but the practice is so big and it's next to impossible to see the same doctor for each appointment. I know it's important to establish a good relationship with our doctor, especially with Christian's specific medical issues. I'm thinking about switching offices, in hopes of finding a smaller practice that can track these things a bit closer...just one more thing to add on my plate!

3 comments:

Jax said...

4 antibiotics? Really? I had no idea. This is crazy. How soon is all of this happening? Thinking of all of you!

Laurie said...

Hi! So glad to hear that you are getting some answers to Christian's nose issues! Will think good thoughts for all of you as you prepare for the procedure. Kids bounce back quickly! Keep us posted....

leah said...

Yikes- four rounds of antibiotics! I'm not that surprised, though. Every pediatrician that we've run into (also a large group) tends to let things go on and on. Our ENT seems to be the champion for figuring things out and solving problems!

I hope the adenoidectomy recovery is as quick and pain-free as possible. If Nolan needs one more set of tubes, then we're headed for adenoidectomy-land, too.