Ok, only the tough ones left reading? Here goes... I hear folks talking about how their kids are always constipated and they're constantly trying to "loosen" them up. Well can I just tell you I am incredibly jealous of anyone who has this problem? Pea-green with envy. Downright covetous... Our girls have had the opposite problem ever since we met them and it is No Fun for anyone.
Our pediatrician has tested them for every known illness, and we've tried everything in his bag of tricks. Cow's milk has been completely eliminated after a particularly horrifying day of 9 diapers in 20 minutes (nuff said). We add fiber (Metamucil or Benefiber) to their food and we give them a little shot of acidophilus powder each day (to replace the beneficial bacteria that the incessant diarrhea has flushed out of their systems). He finally concluded that they most likely have "Toddler Diarrhea" and it will resolve when they potty train.
From around December to July of this year, things were tolerable. Using goat milk, goat cheese, and soy yogurt, giving daily fiber doses, and limiting fruit and avoiding fruit juice completely, we could regulate the girls pretty well. Well that all changed somewhere in August. The girls either lost their tolerance for goat milk and soy, or become allergic to something, or contracted some illness that hasn't been detected yet. Ugh. The diapers are BAD (if they had something bigger than all caps I'd use that) and nothing seems to help. It's really frustrating for the girls because they were almost completely potty trained and now have no advance warning and can't make it to the potty. They just look at me with big sad eyes after the fact and say "poop, mama, poop!" Their stool was re-tested for everything under the sun, we recently started a no-soy no-dairy trial run that hasn't helped yet, and our pediatrician referred us to a Pediatric GI Specialist who we saw this morning. He took a complete history, examined the girls, and ordered up a battery of more blood and stool tests. So we'll see if anything turns up (I'm hoping like mad that something easy and treatable is found...).
In the meantime we're supposed to continue the no-soy no-dairy trial because it apparently takes a while for things to heal and show any conclusive results if that is the problem. So please think good thoughts. The specialist visit this morning, by the way, was our FIRST-EVER no-tears doctor's experience! Whahoooo. It went so well that I'm still reeling from shock and every bone in my body is thankful. During every other previous medical visit the girls have been screaming and crying so loud that I couldn't even hear the doctor speak - no joke. For this one I took half a village with us (Maggie and Wela) and we packed treats, stickers, pens and paper, Ree's chewy, yellow Nanni, pink Nanni, and Ro's lovey bear. And anything that the medical folks wanted to do to the girls, we did to the Nanni bears first. We now know how much the Nannies weigh, how tall they are, what their temperatures are, and how big their heads are. In case anyone's curious. ;-)
Anyhow, it went so well we took the girls out for a celebratory Carl's Jr lunch afterwards and let them eat as many french fries as they wanted (gasp!). Here are a few pics of the girls joyously feasting on delicious fried 'tatoes, mmm mmmmm:
And here's a tiny video I took with my little camera of Ro workin' the angles by hitting up both Maggie and Wela for "Mo Fries!" (smart girl!):
We'll be conducting all of the girls' new tests over the next few weeks, so I'll let y'all know if we find out anything helpful. Oh, and another big chunk of my toe was removed in surgery #2 yesterday. It hurts like a son of a gun, and the girls have already stepped on it twice - yeowch! Results of that second biopsy should come back sometime this week, so everyone please think it with me: "Normal cells only!"
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