I can’t believe I am posting this.. there were so many dark hours in which I thought we’d NEVER get here, but I think I can officially say that Jasper’s GI system has made a miraculous turn around.

So I posted before we were doing the NAET treatments specifically for Dairy…

All I had hoped for was that I’d be able to at least have a little half in half in my coffee, or some blue cheese on my salad. I NEVER expected that not only would I be able to eat dairy (6 days in a row now!) without him breaking out into a eczema rash but that his reflux would all but dissapear at the same time.

Even more amazing is that his poop has been yellow and non mucusy for the first time in I don’t even remember how long! (Dear future Jasper, please forgive me for discussing your poop so much on the internet. love mom.)

I can only theorize that because the NAET Dairy treatment includes things like casein, whey but also what NAET calls “milk mix” which includes breast milk, that somehow the treatment completely changed the way his body handles food through my milk.  This despite the fact that we couldn’t properly clear him for breastmilk because doing so would have required him avoiding it for 25 hours.. we tried to give him neocate so that he could formula feed for that time period but he refused it!

Somehow,  it worked anyway.

And I know there are those of you reading this (my husband included) that will say it’s coincidence, or that he just grew out of it.

And I might even agree with you had it happened in a sequence anything other than the way it did (in fact I was ready to throw in the towell before we started treating for Dairy!)

But here’s the thing: Last week I had a tiny bit of half and half which caused an eczema rash on Jasper’s face, blood in his stool as detected by his pedi GI as well as severe gastric distress the following day.  Several NAET treatments for dairy (we had to treat it in combination with acid and also with several emotions) and about a week later I have half and half again and Jasper’s face stays pristine.  And then I notice his reflux is GONE. I even had feta cheese yesterday and still no reaction!

I suppose that he COULD have grown out of his dairy sensitivity one week from the next, but I wouldn’t have expect it to be so sudden in that case.. I would think it might be that he would break out LESS the following week, or stop spitting up so frequently. You would expect a more gradual decline if that were the case.

I’ve always said that I’m agnostic about wacky-how-could-it-possibly-work things like NAET. If they work, I’m a believer, I don’t really need to know WHY it works to believe that it does if I see it with my own eyes.

Well you can now call me a believer.  My little Jasper is GI Jasper no more!

Jasper in his “Going to Brooklyn” outfit.

But first the good: Jasper had his first overnight this weekend! We went to visit friends Sarah, Jay and their daughter Daphne and spent the night in their guest bedroom..

Jasper did really well as he often does when distracted by “new” things.

Now the bad..

I am operating on my second straight night of no sleep and truly about to lose it.

While I am SO thankful that Jasper’s reflux is under control and he is a pretty happy baby during the daytime (at least compared to what he used to be!) he is still suffering terribly at night.

Every two hours or so he screams with gas pain. Actually first he starts by thrashing his head from side to side and grunting and squeeling, then, if I don’t pick him up and pat his back he starts all out crying in his sleep.. and even when he does manage to fart, it sometimes wakes him up or hurts him and so he cries even more.

But now things have taken a turn for the worse and even when I pick him up sometimes he writhes so much in my arms it’s a struggle just to hold on to him. He also used to stay asleep but now has started to wake up from the discomfort.

My theory as to why it’s so much worse at night is that breastfeeding is known to help relieve gas/relax the digestive tract so given that I feed him every two hours during the day, he is always getting the benefit of the breast milk to help him digest. At night he goes much longer stretches..or he could, but I often feed him out of desperation just to get him to settle down so I can get some sleep!

I also think that being awake and active during the day helps him burp more than at night when it’s really difficult to burp him if he’s asleep.

This nighttime hell has been going on as long as I can remember, which is one of the reasons I started the “Total Elimination Diet” in which I only eat turkey, rice, green and yellow squash, white and sweet potatoes and pears.

I realize that the gas may be caused by his laryngomalacia and the excess air he swallows as a result, but he seems to suffer regardless of whether he lets out a big burp after a feeding or not. Plus he has had other indications of an allergy like mucus in his poop and redness around his anus.

I would eat this way until he’s weaned and be happy if it would spare him the pain, but it doesn’t seem to be working at all yet. I started last Tuesday November 11, so it hasn’t been a full week yet (it takes at least two) but I had really hoped to see some improvement by now. (I have also been off dairy and soy for at least 10 days before that).

I am just at a complete loss as to how to help him..we have tried mylicon, bicycle legs, tummy massage, probiotics etc. and nothing helps in the slightest.

It is emotionally draining because I just want to cry right along with him every time he screams in pain and I can’t do anything to help him. It is physically draining because I am not feeling great from the diet to begin with and then on top of that I can not sleep at all with him either crying or squirming next to my bed or thrashing and writhing and crying on my chest when I pick him up to comfort him. The impact of no sleep is also much more taxing now that I’m back at work.

In two days he will be three months old.. I had really hoped that we’d be past all of this by now as everyone seemed to say we would.

We’re seeing the pediatric GI doctor again on Thursday, but he wasn’t any help the first time so I’m not holding my breath!

This also accounts for why I haven’t been able to take any pictures of him from weeks 2-4 (yes, our little guy is now one month old!)

I do have these two though, can you believe how different he looks already?

The Dark Lord

Jasper or Satan?

All kidding aside, it has been an incredibly trying two weeks. I’ve cried more times than I can count, sometimes out of frustration and feeling sorry for myself, other times out of sadness that Jasper is in SO much discomfort. He basically only has about 2 ten minute periods a day when he is awake and NOT crying.

The rest of the time he is either eating or “sleeping”. I say “sleeping” in quotation marks because he squirms, grunts, cries, arches and screams in his sleep.  So even his sleep doesn’t give us any respite from his unhappiness.

The news isn’t all bad though, here are some positives: His growth is fabulous. He is gaining a tad over an oz. a day. At his one month well visit he was 10lbs 6 oz and 20.5 inches.  He also has started social smiling! One smile has the effect of washing away at LEAST half a day’s misery. (Too bad he doesn’t do it more often.)

He is still on Zantac, though I’m tempted to take him off. It’s been over a week and he is certainly NOT better. The pedi said we could up his dose, but I haven’t yet.. I just don’t feel comfortable doing that if it doesn’t seem to be working at all.

Plus, my observations tell me his problems are not upper GI (reflux) but lower GI (intestinal gas). He seems to groan, grunt, push as if constipated and a fart or two will come out, but clearly there is more gas trapped in there which is what is making him so uncomfortable.

The pedi said there isn’t much more that he can do for us and gave us the name of a Pediatric Gastro-enterologist. I’m not sure we want to go down that route as I’m not willing for him to have any invasive procedures or tests. I would let them test his poop for any signs of bacteria or infection, so that may be something we will look into.

In the meantime, I finally coordinated all the necessary referrals to have a meeting with a Lactation Consultant two days ago.

The results were very interesting!

I had thought the bulk of our discussion would center around my diet (should i go back on dairy or not, clearly it hasn’t helped at all – what else could be causing the fussiness?) but instead, towards the end of our meeting she did a physical exam of Jasper’s mouth… and guess what? Turns out he’s tongue tied!

His upper lip is completely tied (and explains why I’ve never been able to get him to flange it correctly during nursing) and his tongue is 4th degree tied (also called “posterior tongue tie” or “simple presentation”). This means that it’s tied farther back that the “classic” presentation which is quite obvious just by looking because the baby’s tongue is actually heart shaped.

Tongue tie doens’t just hurt the mom’s nipples (mine are actually fine) it also causes fussiness during feeding and colic symptoms due to a difficulty in coordinated breathing and swallowing, particularly with the posterior tie which is counter-intuitive because it is the less “drastic” of all of the presentations. It also causes the baby to tire out and fall asleep before getting all the milk it needs. This makes perfect sense to me because Jasper has always done that, but lately (probably because his nutritional needs are higher now) he needs to eat, falls alseep and wakes up hungry no more than 30 minutes later. He also has been needing to eat every two hours rather than three for the past two days. With the double feedings and the two hours, he is almost CONSTANTLY at the breast.

There is an excellent article called “Congenital Tongue Tie and it’s Impact on Breastfeeding” by Elizabeth Coryllos, MD, MSs, FAAP, FACS, FRCSc, IBCLC; Catherine Watson Genna, BS, IBCLC and Alexander C. Salloum, MD, MA that explains all of this in-depth and it is a very interesting read if you suspect your little one may suffer from any degree of tongue-tie.

Fortunately for us, Dr. Coryllos, perhaps the foremost expert on tongue-ties and breastfeeding and the lead author of that article lives only 1.5 hours away from us, so I’m making an appointment for Jasper to see her ASAP – hopefully this week.

In the meantime, I  started eating dairy and soy again.  In the almost three weeks I was off them, Jasper got worse and not better, so I figured it was time to stop torturing myself! Plus I feel pretty confident that the problem is mechanical in the way he is eating. If it were dietary, I would expect him to be fussy AFTER he eats. But Jasper is fussy WHILE he eats (and after too).

The L.C. also encouraged me to take him to a chiropractor and cited this Danish Study that showed chiropractic manipulation to help colic babies more than drugs.  We had already taken him to cranial sacral therapy once, so we are going to take him back for at least 3 more treatments, as this study showed that was the number of manipulations needed to see improvement.

I’ll keep you posted on these new developments.. wish us luck!!

So at our visit to the pediatrician Friday to get the zantac Rx, I asked him when I should be introducing a bottle given that I plan on going back to work after 3 months. He said “Now!” almost like it might already be too late. I know don’t why but I had in my mind something about 6 weeks, but apartantly if BF is going well, the sooner the better or risk bottle rejection.

So one of my projects for the weekend was to figure out how the hell to use my Medela PISA and our Dr. Brown bottles and our Microwave sterilizer.

I hooked up the PISA and – wow! That thing can pump. Luckily with my milk supply and OALD (overactive let down) I’m a fast pumper. I got 2 oz off of one side in about 4 minutes. I couldn’t have kept going to do a full bottle (4-5oz at his age?) but didn’t want to empty my breast in case he rejected the bottle so I could feed him off it.

I needn’t have worried, Jasper attacked the bottle with the same ferocity that he attacks my boobs – barracuda style. Interestingly though, he arched, fussed and pulled off in exactly the same manner that he does while at the breast. So there goes my OALD oversupply theory – I mean I know a bottle is a bit faster than the average breast, but the behavior was so similar that it MUST be something in the milk that’s bothering him.. or maybe it’s the way he’s sucking or eating?

UGH, the mystery continues!

I am trying to arrange an appointment with a Lactation consultant who comes highly recommended. She even takes Aetna! But in order for ins. to cover it, we need a referral from Jasper’s pedi as well as my primary, so I’m waiting for those to come in. I’m hoping her knowledge and experience can shed some light on our issues.

In the meantime, Jasper actually fed and went down really easy last night all three times.. the problem was he grunted and arched all night in his sleep, making it difficult for me to get any sleep (Jeff is jet-lagged from his trip to China and had no problem sleeping through it!)

Poor little guy seems so unhappy. Unfortunately it seems to be carrying through to this morning, he’s an unhappy camper,  but maybe because he hasn’t had his zantac yet. Not for lack of trying, I gave it to him 10 minutes ago, but then he prompty spit up a minute later. I would give it again but now he has hiccups.

I think it’s going to be a long day!

I want to thank you all for your extremely thoughtful and useful advice on Jasper’s “colic” situation. I put “colic” in quotes because I don’t think his discomfort is colic at all, as colic is defined as ocurring only during a certain three hour period of the day. Jasper’s discomfort can appear at any time during the day (sometimes all day!).

In an act of desperation, I called our pediatrician to go in for a sick visit yesterday rather than wait for his one month well visit next Thursday.  An extra week of this hell seemed too long to endure! I wanted to try the zantac.

My reasoning is simple, first of all, reflux is much more common than milk protein, soy or any other allergy, so it makes sense to try the treatment for reflux first.  Second, its much easier to test for reflux vs. allergies because if he makes a miraculous turn around a day or two after starting zantac, we have our answer.  Dietary changes are a bit harder to pinpoint, particularly when you’re trying more than one thing at once. Also, I am only at week two of dairy elimination from my diet, and I couldn’t imagine waiting two more weeks to get some relief for our poor little guy. And third , selfish as it may be, I have little to no desire to go on a boiled chicken and rice diet unless I’m pretty sure I’ve exhausted the other options!

So we started Jasper on a super low dose (.8ml) of Zantac last night. So far I’ve noticed a bit less of the agressive throat clearing (which I call “the sound of the devil”) but he still writhed in gas pain for an hour and a half last night and periodically througout the day today. Obviously it’s too soon to tell, but I’m beginning to form a different opinion of our problem all together…

My new self diganosis? Overactive let down (and overactive milk supply.) I think there may also be a reflux problem, but the hours of writhing in gas pain can definitely be accounted for by my super forceful let down and abundant milk supply.

This article on Kellymom describes every one of our symptoms to a T.. the frequent pulling off (which often results in my milk squirting poor Jasper in the face!), choking, sputtering, clicking sounds etc. all of which results in him swallowing too much air and causes intestinal pain an hour or two later.

Interestingly, it also can cause too much foremilk to be swallowed, which causes even more gas due to it’s high lactose content.

I’m going to try forcing him off and catching the let down in a cloth a couple of times and see how that goes. It’s a messy business doing that, but maybe the answer to our problems.

It’s funny, I never would have pegged me for an oversupply kind of gal given that I didn’t “leak” at all during my pregnancy which I know some people do.. I also never drink enough water, but I guess those aren’t predictors of supply or I wouldn’t be in this situation.

I’ll keep you posted.. hopefully I’ll have my angel baby back in a matter of a few days rather than a few months!

Update: I tried pumping and giving Jasper a bottle for the first time yesterday – he behaved exactly like he does at the breast.. alternately writhing, spitting it out, arching and attacking it ravenously.. so now it seems it’s unlikely it’s just my let down if he does the same thing at the bottle. I also reread the symptoms of reflux and they are pretty much the same as the overactive let down.. so now I’m just as perplexed as ever!

Some highs and lows of our second week…

Highs:

Bath Time

Jasper’s umbilical cord finally fell off! We celebrated by giving him his first real bath, which he loved (much to my relief!)

Jasper got to meet both my sister (auntie Roxy) who came to stay with me because Jeff had to travel to Hong Kong and his great Auntie Diane who came to meet him all the way from Scotland!

Jasper and Auntie Roxy

Jasper also got to meet Mike, Tracy and Gemma for the first time..

Lows..

Jasper has developed pretty severe colic. He grunts, turns red and cries even in his sleep and it breaks my heart to see him in so much pain. He even does it at the breast and pulls off while eating. It also means I haven’t slept in days. In fact I didn’t realize it was even possible to function on such little sleep!

I cut out dairy about a week ago, it doesn’t seem to have made any difference yet. In place of the dairy I substituted soy (soy milk, cream cheese etc.) but have now cut that out too.. and even anything that could promote yeast like beer, or sweets. Basically I’ve become a breatharian. I’d do anything to make it better, but unfortunately it’s almost impossible to pinpoint what is causing him such distress.

Fortunately our little guy is superbaby – and is still thriving despite all the pain and lack of good quality sleep:

Super Baby!

His cryptonite is gas pain – (or reflux?)

If anyone has any suggestions on fighting colic, please let me know. We’ve tried cocyntal, gripe water, cranial sacral therapy and mylicon with no luck. At his one month appointment we’ll try baby zantac.

In summary, the second week has been HARD.. terrible twos indeed!