Newest Developments

Our newest development consists of Ross having acute symptoms of eosinophilic esophagitis. For two weeks he felt as if someone was strangeling him; so on August 20he had an EGD. The scope showed a pretty nasty looking esophagus just to be frank. He has several rings, furrowing, strictures, and plaque. All indicative of EE. While waiting for the pathology reports from the biopsies taken, we decided to have him allergy tested. He had been tested for environmental allergens as a teenager; but they tested limited foods. His results showed the following: wheat, corn, oat, rice, rye, onion, yeast, green bean, green pea, orange, and soy. This is in addition to peanut, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish we already knew to be positive. Finally we received the results from the biopsies. He has 50 eos/hpf in his distal esophagus and 80 eos/hpf in his mid esophagus. If you have read Abigail's Story, you will see that her eos/hpf were 90; so they are both in pretty rough shape. We are hoping that since Ross' symptoms have just now exacerbated many years since his first onset (which looking back, was when he was a toddler), that his case will be less severe than Abigail's. We have been having difficulty finding an adult GI that has experience with EE, so we are also taking him to Cincinnati. We have begun the process and look forward to an acceptance call within the next 2 to 4 weeks.

Our Trip to Cincinnati

Our trip to Cincinnati was absolutely amazing! Other than the speeding ticket that we got on our way to have Abigail's patch testing read ;). Oh well, you win some you loose some. Back to our week in Cincy. On Monday, Abigail had her scope and amazingly her esophagus looked better than it ever has. However once we got the pathology results later in the week; they found eos still present. Dr. P. said that since the disease was still prevalent, he wanted to remove bananas (the one and only food) from her diet. Honestly, this was kind of a sigh of relief because we were terrified to introduce new foods. So long story short, she is drinking her Neocate Jr. only, and she may have the original Dum Dum Sucker flavors, Pixy Stix,and Smarties in order to maintain her oral motor skills. On Tuesday Abigail had allergy skin prick testing and also patch testing. The prick testing was well....horrible! She sreamed and flailed her body; wanting desperately to scratch the whelps that popped up immediately. Her testing confirmed the following allergies: milk, casein, eggs, wheat, peas, peanut, tree nuts, corn, barley, rye, mustard and sunflower seeds. Luckily however, her patch tests all came back negative. Like I said previously we removed the bananas (even though she did not test positive) because she has never been scoped on formula only. The theory is that if she has no eos present on formula only then she has the allergic-type of EE, and if there are still eos present; then she has the non-allergic type. Of coarse we will be holding our breathe for the next three months as we wait to find out at our next scope which type of EE she has. Here's to hoping that it is the allergic-type! I say this because although it is difficult to treat, it is much easier to control than the non-allergic type. I think that should get everyone up-to-date with our progress. I have attatched some pictures from our trip below.


Daddy, Mommy, Abigial, and Patches the Bear before the EGD.



Mommy holding Abigail as they are putting Abigail to sleep.



Abigail playing in the Allergy waiting room.



Look closely and you can see the whelps!



Abigail's Patch Testing.