Well, I, being quite resourceful and having knowledgeable friends, managed to avoid a trip to CHOP, having discovered that they have a satellite diagnostic center near the KoP Mall.
So Monday morning, Jim took the morning off work, and we took Amelia for her testing. Siblings weren't allowed in the testing rooms, so Maria had fun in the toy filled waiting room, being zombified by the cartoons on tv.
Amelia did very well with the tests, pretty much taking everything in stride.
It turns out that she does have moderate urinary reflux, on both sides, meaning that when her bladder was being filled with the contrast, it traveled part way back up the ureters towards her kidneys. Obviously this is not a good thing if it's happening frequently and if it causing bacteria to infect the kidneys, which can cause permanent damage.
The treatment? Preventative antibiotics. Which may or may not work to prevent kidney infections, or reduce damage to the kidneys if an infection does occur. So even with antibiotic treatment we still have to watch her for signs of infection, so that she can be treated immediately if one should occur.
We don't like giving the kids medicine, unless we know it's needed so preventative antibiotics that aren't necessarily proven kind of rub us the wrong way. Fortunately, they are doing a study, in which some kids will have the standard treatment of preventative antibiotics and some will have a placebo.
We are hoping to take part in this, and of course hoping for a placebo. We already know that we'll be watching her more closely, so adding an antibiotic doesn't seem all that helpful. If we don't get in the study or choose not to do it (once we hear the full protocol) then we'll have to take Amelia to a urologist who will help us decide what treatment to follow and will help us monitor her to see if/when she grows out of the condition. Because most kids do grow out of it. And it seems that they are finding that it's increasingly being linked to the time of potty training.
So all this is a rather long way of saying that Amelia'a ok, and probably will be ok. Which is a nice change after all that excitement.
1 comment:
Glad to know that you have some idea of what is going on, even though the method of solution is less than desirable. Just good to know that in general, everything is ok.
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