Is It Safe To Scope When Sick?

[SilverSlipper]

I know this is a question best left for the doctor to answer, but we are having one of those weeks that will be tightly scheduled.

We see our gastro this week and I anticipate my youngest will need to have a scope (upper/lower) soon. This is not for my daughter with Celiac, it's for my youngest (tentatively diagnosed with IBS). She has daily stomach aches and diarrhea since about last December. The various meds are not working. A trial of gluten free didn't help. Cutting out milk made things better for a while and so did cutting out fruit juice. (She's not allergic to anything and is not lactose intolerant). Limiting high fat items also helped. (She's six years old by the way).

However, she has a nasty cough that has lingered for about five weeks that our pediatrician can't seem to get rid of. She has that deep, hacking, smoker's type cough. Her medications for it vary, but she's on about four of them right now (eight is usually the maximum when it gets really bad - this is a chronic thing as well). It's worse in the fall/winter, but I really don't want to wait for spring to do the scope.

Are they going to be able to do a scope when she has chest problems like this? I worry about the anesthesia. I plan to ask our doctor as well, but I wanted a parent's viewpoint as well.

Thanks

[stanleymonkey]

has she been tested for cystic fibrosis? that was the first thing our daughter was tested for as she has had diahreea pretty much constantly from 13months (she's now nearly 3) i think it is alos an autoimmune disorder, and it was explaine to us that chest issues are not always the first things to appear, and not all kids are failure to thrive

[kareng]

If & when they schedule a scope, ask what anesthesia group will be doing it. Then call them and ask.

My sister had a horrible cough fall & winter when she was that age. Found out it was allergies. Have they tested her for the dust mites, pet allergies, etc?

[SilverSlipper]

She is a carrier for Cystic Fibrosis but does not have it. I confess to wondering if we have a false result for that but our pediatrician seems sure that it's negative other than as a carrier. My daughter with Celiac was tested for CF first and she is also a carrier, but does not have it. When we took my youngest for allergy testing, they wanted to test her for CF until we told them we had already been tested. (Her stomach aches get better on steroid treatments for her coughing).

It's possible we missed something with her allergy tests but we went through a lot of detail - they tested for seasonal allergies, at the time we lived in an old home, so they tested for mold, etc and we have outside pets, so they tested for animal dander, etc. All negative.

The diarrhea has increased and she is starting to have accidents by not getting to the bathroom in time. I didn't realize how much this bothered her until I found that she was stashing soiled underwear from embarrassment. I told her to just throw them away but let me know so I can buy more.

I'm thinking about asking them to re-test on the CF just to be certain.

[AzizaRivers]

Just as a thought, if she's been tested for allergies has she also been evaluated for asthma? It's not always caused by allergies so just because they don't think she has allergies doesn't mean it couldn't be asthma. I know you're not really asking if advice on that in this thread but I just figured I'd mention it in case it sparked anything. Especially because if it turns out it IS some kind of asthma, that could increase the chances of it being aggravated by anesthesia (particularly if they use a mask to administer part of it, which they sometimes do for small children to make them sleepy before the needle).

[SilverSlipper]

Actually, we've looked into asthma as well. (And honestly, other than the anesthesia questions, I'm open to ANY suggestions in regards to her health). Our pediatrician thought she had asthma and when we went to the allergist, they tested her and said she didn't have asthma, just some wheezing issues during illness. During her last 'illness' that triggered her coughing/breathing problems, the emergency room doctors told me to quit calling it bronchospasms (which is what we were told it was by our regular doctor) and to call it asthma, because that's what she had.

Right now, she has the cough but not breathing problems. Most of the time, she has significant breathing issues when she has illness (which triggers the coughing). She starts wheezing, turns pale, eyes bulge, her head lowers to her chest and she starts panicking.

Thankfully, regardless of the discussion of what is going on, it's treated adequately - she has an emergency inhaler, maintenance inhaler and we purchased a nebulizer when she has lots of difficulty. If it gets too bad, we go to the ER and they give her more powerful medication to get her over the worst of it.

[kareng]

I don't know where you live, but around the Midwest, there are several fungus thatyou can get in your lungs. Have they checked that? Has she had a chest xray? Have they looked at her sinus. My SIL has some sinus issues that cause infections that get to her lungs every winter if they don't keep up with it.

I'll think on this a bit more. Ifi think of anything I'll post it.

[stanleymonkey]

I'd ask for allergy test and cf test to be redone. Did she have the sweat test? Our daughter is having her cf blood redone even though she had a negative sweat test because they want to double check as with most tests at 2 they are so unreliable. Also what about tb?it is mire prevalent these days it not the first think in the doctors mind;-)~

[SilverSlipper]

We live in Alabama. She has chest x-rays when she gets sick to see if it's progressed to pneumonia (occasionally it has, but we typically catch it quickly).

The allergy tests were done about six months ago and surprised everyone. The allergist had anticipated that she would have some seasonal allergies at least, but everything came back fine.

The CF test was a blood test. We didn't do a sweat test on her because our other daughter's sweat test had come back as questionable which is when we did bloodwork and found out she was a carrier. We skipped the sweat test on our other two daughters and went straight to blood test.

I'll ask for another cf test and I'll check into tuberculosis and some of the other things mentioned.

[SilverSlipper]

Sorry for the double-post, it won't let me edit for some reason.

I wanted to add that our doctor has diagnosed her with sinus infections and things like that, but I didn't gather that this was a big deal, more of a 'catch-all' for various stuffy noses and such.

She has seen an allergist though and I would think looking at her sinuses and any potential problems would have been on their list - especially as most of the doctors we see know that we are in a searching mode for what is going on with her.

Our pediatrician is puzzled but since she is not losing weight and is still growing, he is not overly concerned except with the cough.

[stanleymonkey]

weight for dome reason seems to be their guiding light. If your other daughter cf sweat text was questionnaire I'd ask for it to be done again

[SilverSlipper]

We saw our gastro today and he changed her medicine for her stomach ache again (she hates the taste of the other one). He said he was struggling to accept her negative diagnosis for Celiac Disease considering our family history and wanted to try another temporary gluten free diet to see if it helps. So, he wrote notes for the school and we're back on gluten free (lactose free and fruit juice free as well). We do that for 30 days but after ten days he said to try some imodium ad if she still has diarrhea. After a few days, we will stop the imodium ad and see if it starts back up.

We see our pediatrician on Thursday and I plan to ask him about re-testing some things as the cough simply has to go.