Adia's Health Update

Good morning!  Its been a LONG almost couple of months as we've been dealing with the sudden health issues with Adia that started at the beginning of October.  On October 6, Adia was diagnosed with asthma.  With that diagnosis, the onslaught of numerous doctor's visits, lab work, steroid inhalers and oral steroids ensued (October 14).  The allergy test results indicated that she is allergic to dust mites and cockroaches.  Gluten sensitivity was also something we needed to be watching for, for symptoms.  On October 16, we found out that her vitamin D levels were low.  In an effort to raise those levels, they put her on a powerhouse of Vit D to get her levels raised.   By October 18, we had bad headaches, stomach aches with nausea and sometimes vomiting.  After a follow up visit with the allergist to redo the pulmonary test, I was able to convince her to switch Adia's steroid inhaler (October 24).  Thankfully, her pulmonary test levels had improved since her initial diagnosis.   On October 30, with symptoms still not improving, I asked the allergist to try yet another steroid inhaler.  The allergist agreed to switch, but said we needed to contact our primary care physician to see if we needed to do an x-ray of the stomach and a CT of the head to make sure nothing else was going on.  Adia has had headaches and stomach aches in the past, but once the treatment for the asthma started, they became much worse!  Needless to say, Adia has missed a lot of school due to feeling so crummy. 

On November 6, Adia had an appointment with our family doctor and had an x-ray on the stomach and more labwork.  She was also taken off of all Vitamin D supplements and the steroid inhalers.  She was now only to use the resuce inhaler as needed.  On November 20, after waiting for insurance to approve the CT scan, that was performed on her head.  All labs and x-rays as well as the CT scan came back normal.  We were told by the doctor that they didn't know what was wrong and to watch  her symptoms and come back in 3 months.

Adia and Mommy playing while we wait for the doctor to come.

Anne helping ease Adia's nerves as they play with filters while we wait for the CT scan.

I may not be a doctor, but I know that even though all the medical tests say Adia is fine, the way she was feeling and acting indicated to me that she was not fine.  Thus, we went for a second opinion.

Because Adia was so miserable, we decided to go to a doctor who was more open to natural ways of treatment. (I understand this avenue is not right for every family.  However, this way as you will see later, is the only way we have been able to get Adia relief.)  We now not only had the asthma to deal with but also the headaches, stomach aches,  muscle aches and weakness and a few other symptoms to treat.   We took all of Adia's lab work and test results with us to this new doctor for him to look at so he could get a clearer picture of what we were dealing with.  Because his lab ranges are a bit stricter than the average doctor, he was able to determine that Adia was fighting a virus.  On November 13, we started a medicine (given to us as a sample) to help Adia's body fight the virus.  This doctor also had us take Adia off of foods that contain gluten and dairy as those two foods are often considered inflammatory foods.  We then had to start a food diary so that I could write down everything she eats to see if there could be some other sensitivies/allergies as well. 

By November 18, we could tell that the treatment for the virus was helping alleviate some of the symptoms.  Adia was feeling much better!  Sadly, once the samples were gone, the doctor had run out of the medicine as they were waiting for the next shipment to arrive.  So Adia went a few days without and it wasn't long before she started complaining of the symptoms returning.  We are now back on the medicine and it didn't take long for her to start feeling better again.  In some ways, running out of the medicine was a blessing as it really helped us to know if it was helping Adia as much as we thought it was.

Our next appointment with the allergist is this coming Friday, December 1.   Adia will be repeating the pulmonary test to see where her numbers are.  I will be bringing the numbers along from the breathing tests we have been doing at home almost everyday with our air flow meter.  Our prayer is that Adia's numbers will be doing well or at least holding stable and not getting worse so that they won't try to put her back on the steroid inhalers. 

Thank you for continuing to pray!  We pray that we will continue to be on the right track and that Adia will continue to get stronger and stronger.  She has already made comment that she can breathe better, run better in PE and hold her breath longer.  That is a huge answer right there!  We are also thankful that God enabled her to feel good on Thanksgiving Day and the day we went to see family as her virus medicine was gone.  She started to decline the evening after we had spent time with family. 

Adia with one of her cousins.

So for now, here is what each day entails for us.  We make sure Adia is using her rescue inhaler (which is used as a maintenance right now) at least twice a day, take her medicine to help with the virus, take her breathing test and record the numbers, write down what she has eaten that day and write down symptoms of how she is feeling for that day.  As you can imagine, there have been a lot of papers and test results to keep together as well as be easily ready to grab to take to each doctor's appointment.  So this baby was created....

Thank you for all of you who have been checking in regularly with us to see how Adia is doing!