a tad of this, a little of that: November 2008

I mentioned before how our little man has had a few troubles growing in his young life. Hes by most counts a normal child. Hes very good natured and content. He alert and responds well even though he doesn't yet say a lot in his young 17.5 mos.

Over his life span hes had a few things we've needed checked out.

At birth he didn't want to suck. He wasn't eating from a bottle or otherwise. We had a special nurse come in and show us how to rub his chin and get him to suck our finger. Luckily he picked up on it right away. Sharp contrast to my daughter who was born with hickies on her hands and arms from sucking herself before birth.

At 1-2 mos old we noticed his head had become very mis-shaped. Dramatically flat in the back. At 4 mos we went to Childrens Hospital in Seattle to meet with a specialist in tort. She said he had it and sent us to PT and referred him for helmet therapy. He started PT right away and his PT said she didn't seen any sign of tort. She did say he had low muscle tone. At the time it seemed like an odd diagnosis. But since he was bloblike we kept going. He was already behind for his age.

He got a helmet at 6 mos old, almost a year ago. He wore it until April so about 4 months. It does seem to have helped but his head is far from perfect. His ears stick out a little and there are odd bumps in the back. Better than it was for sure.

About the same time, he was sent to get an upper GI because he was gagging on most of his food. He didn't want to chew or seem to chew. He was still behind on milestones, he wasn't yet sitting alone. He fell into a negative 5 on the growth scale. He was not gaining and growing as fast as other kids. They found nothing wrong.

He had been asked to be apart of a research study for plagio and brachio patience through Childrens Hospital. They did a not sedated MRI and also found nothing wrong. He has a follow up with them next month to evaluate any changes in the last year.

He still continued(s) to go to PT and most recently was diagnosed with rolling ankles. On November 14 he got SureStep braces to wear on his ankles. Less than one week later he started walking on his own. Hes very wobbly but is doing well.

Hes been to a neurologist twice, and goes again in January. He will see another pediatric specialist next week and also starts speech therapy as well.

I am sure there is much more I am leaving out that is not coming to me at the moment.

About the time we were told about his ankles it was made aware to us that our son does not have a bunch of little issues. He has one thing that has caused everything. Of course we are devistated to not know what could have caused this. We blamed ourselves some how. I have been doing some research about a couple drugs I was given to stop labor and one of them has come up on several occasions to cause hypotonia. Of course some say it couldnt have. I have 3 children, the first 2 have not had anything medically wrong with them what so ever. They are both even in advanced classes in school. They rarely have to visit the doctor because they hardly are even sick with colds.

The medicine that I have discovered is Magnesium Sulfate. It was given to me at an out of town hospital I was admitted to for contractions at about 30 weeks gestation. We were visiting family when I kept getting contractions. I knew I wasnt going to have the baby. It wasn't time. They gave me tributaline, niphedapine and lastly an IV of Magnesium Sulfate. That was the most horrid experience of my life. They strapped me to the bed and I felt like the bride of Frankenstien as the vile medicine entered my blood. I wish I would have said no. I wasn't dilating but you know when you are being told stuff by the doctors you trust you want to do whats right for your baby. I was worried he would try to come early, they were too...I had 2 steroid shots to help the lungs develope. After 2 days and several meds later I found out they never called my doctor. I called her and she was upset they gave me what they did. She did dismiss my fears that the meds could harm the baby...and until recently I didn't think they had.

Now that we "know" even though we have no proof we do feel we know the cause. I do hope that it resolves itself on its own and he has no life long learning problems or muscle issues as he grows. Here are some links in case anyone else is in our situation.

Crosses human placenta.

No fetal adverse effects reported except neonatal depression and hypotonia as a result of in utero exposure to the drug.

Long-term maternal therapy with magnesium sulfate may cause fetal hypocalcemia that affect fetal bone mineralization producing congenital rickets.

Maternal magnesium sulfate administration together with gentamycin may produce in utero aquired interaction of both drugs resulting in respiratory arrest of the newborn.

Nifidipine interacts with magnesium in potentiating the neuro muscular blocking activity of the latter drug.

It causes maternal hypothermia and maternal and fetal tachy cardia.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9848759

http://www.eipico.com.eg/PRODUCT.ASP?id1=8&id2=0%20&id4=2

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118605407/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

http://vaccinesexposed.blogspot.com/search?q=magnesium

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1116139

http://www.americanpregnancy.org/pregnancyhealth/magnesium.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=RCjufcQVUVEC&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=magnesium+sulfate+hypotonia&source=web&ots=_kfnr_uQ88&sig=jFP1PZQjHUfwk94p4SxeyA8d7AM&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result#PPA169,M1

http://www.tripletconnection.org/twins_quadruplets_quintuplets_multiples/tocolysis_drugs_preterm_labor.html

I am sure there is a ton I am leaving out.

So like the whole rest of the planet...I am addicted to these books. I have read the first 2 and Midnight Sun. Which I might add is really difficult to do via iPhone. I read all 264 pages on my little screen. lol Yes I am a dork but I wasn't near a computer or I would have read it that way. I almost liked it better than Twilight. It explains a lot more. In fact they should have used that version for the movie. Alice is my favorite.

Read "This Girl's Life" for an accurate review of the movie. Bag of suck. I do find Rob really hot, hes an all around sweetie. Kristen was a twit. She is not Bella. They could have cast that a lot better. The girl from Juno maybe?

Ok now Brandon mentioned to me the other day before we saw the movie that he saw on TV where they said its all about saying NO which is a change from other stories of today. I agreed...yes its about self control and not going too far. Then after thinking about some Church going types, not they hypocritical ones of course but the honest to goodness people that do the right thing in all aspects of their lives. Many of them Mormon. They tend to be the ones that practice what they preach. Anyhow I flipped the book over the other day and noticed that Steph Meyers went to BYU, the light went on. I wonder if anyone else noticed that the Twilight books are to Mormons as Chronicles of Narnia are to Christians. It makes me giggle. It has a good story anyway and I will continue to read them. I did think it odd that none of Bella's friends had parties that had alcohol and none smoked. She did have a couple cokes but not too many. Thats just this girls thoughts on it.

Carry on...