We had our appointment today at Children's Hospital (wonderful by the way.) We met with Bel's endocrinologist today and actually were given answers to her "episodes." I never imagined that this would go so smoothly so I pray that we have found an answer & treatment to what is going on.
Bel has been diagnosed as a Ketotic Hypoglycemic... what does that mean in normal people language. Well a normal functioning liver is able to convert our foods into starches and stores them and slowly releases them into our bodies to carry us through the periods of time in which we are not eating. Bel's liver does not do this, more specifically it doesn't do this at night, which is the reason for her "episodes" to be happening early in the morning. Her liver runs into an actual empty stage at night because of the long stretch of time without eating (dinner- breakfast). This means she is lacking the "fuel" to function normally in the morning. Her blood glucose level was measured at a 48 back in January when she was in the hospital, and had we measured two weeks ago it would have been close to that with how she was acting.
So from here we have a couple of modifications to our normal life. Shockingly they are really simple! She will need a protein rich snack before she heads to bed so that her body will slowly break down the food and the liver will be able to retain the converted starches. Then the same thing in the morning with a glass of milk or other protein rich food to get her day started. Her Dr. says this should take care of the "problem" and will help her body to maintain a normal blood glucose level (which is different for everyone).
IF we have any other "episodes" we have a blood glucose monitor (like type I diabetes) to check her levels as the episode is going on. If they drop we will take the next step at Children's Hospital. We are hopeful that we will not go this direction and most children outgrow the problem by age 5 so I will leave this very long update at that.
On a much different note the Swing set is here! And she is in love with it!
No comments:
Post a Comment