Friday, May 24, 2013

Visiting the ENT

As mentioned in a previous post, we were referred to an ENT to have them check on Elly's breathing. Well on Wednesday we went to Children's Hospital to see Dr. Smith at Pediatric ENT Associates. We are extremely lucky to live in a town with a Children's Hospital who can provide excellent care and diagnosis. Our visit went well and after they put a scope down Elly's nose to see what was going on, they diagnosed her with Laryngomalacia (or malacia for short). This is present from birth and is the most common abnormality of the larynx (voice box). Infants with laryngomalacia have a noisy breathing called stridor and is usually outgrown by 12 to 18 months. We are glad that we were able to find out what was the cause of the breathing issues. Dr. Smith recommended to try to put her on her side when she sleeps and to keep a close eye on her to make sure she doesn't turn blue or stop breathing for long periods of time as well as putting a sleep wedge in her crib could help (now we just need to get her to sleep in the crib). He also was able to determine that she does have slight reflux and but at this point it doesn't seem bad enough for her to go on medicine. We go back in 3 months and will have everything looked at again. Hopefully as she gets older things will get better as if they get worse, surgery will need to be looked into.

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