I need to rant about the pediatrician - lacotose

[hoosll]

I am caregiver for my DGS, he is now 14+ months old.

When he was 9 mon ths old he had the mandatory lead/iron screen. Negative on the lead but he was anemic and placed on iron supplements - it took 2 months to raise his iron level ... doctor did not seem concerned that he was anemic or why a healthy baby fed formula for 3 months (after breastfeeding for 6 months) would be anemic .... surprise, they don't even test him for anemia again ....

Since then he has had 2 ear infections. I asked the doctor why he has loose stools constantly ... doctor says put him on a probiotic ... hooray 3 loose stools, one firm per day .... doctor says time to switch him to whole milk ... his very loose stools are full of mucus! I tell my daughter we're going back to formula.

Two weeks ago baby goes back to doctor for high fever and sore throat - negative for strep but becomes roseola ....

This week he has a boil on his butt that tests positive for MRSA.

This is a child with a very high pain threshold ... the only way we know he has an ear infection is that he loses his sense of balance and is fussy overnight. He has never shown any tummy tightness or bowel pain ...

We saw a different pediatrician with the boil and I mentioned the mucus in the whole milk bowels ... off handedly she mentions, try him on soy milk .... what a change! His stools immediately firmed up.

He is on antibiotic for MRSA but has fluid in his ear again (surprise Bactrim doesn't work on ear infections!)

This child has been treated illness by illness. No one would stop and look at the problem holistically ... I believe he has been lactose intolerant for awhile which means he is not absorbing iron properly and he has increased mucus production which can lead to ear infections ... He has been delayed in learning to walk due to imbalance issues and muscle weakness.

Where did we go wrong ... I tried my best to get the doctor to tell me why an anemic child would suddenly be fine? I tried to discuss loose bowels ... at no time did anyone say - lactose.

Unfortunately, I went through this with my DD 35 years ago when she had chronic ear infections and was deafened for 6 months as the doctors tried antibiotic after antibiotic, soy milk, etc.... we ended up taking her away from the pediatrician and moving to a general practitioner who was willing to send her to ear nose and throat doctor who immediately used tubes to open her ears ... learning and speech problems accumulated until when she was screened in Kindergarten and found to have a birth defect ... correcttive surgery discovered a malclusion of the soft palate and the absence of adenoids .... Huh ....what had the doctors been looking at !!!!

Both my grandfathers and my father were doctors so it is hard for me to not give pediatricians the benefit of the doubt. My DD takes DGS to the largest pediatrician group in our town (ironically, the same practice I took her to as an infant) ... so it's not easy for her to ask for another doctor in the practice ... they sort of rotate you around for well and sick visits ... should we just bail out and find a new pediatrician, should we sit down with current doctor and read the riot act ...

 

[Christine]

First off--have you confirmed that there is, indeed, a lactose intolerance?

 

[The Mystery Machine]

You have to go to specialists when the reg. docs cannot help you.

There are some reg. docs that are better than others however a good doc sends you to a specialists either right away or after attempting to address your issues and not being able to find a solution.

A reg. pediatrician is not a gastro doctor or an ENT.

I would have thought I learned that cold when my oldest was born with a heart defect. However with my second I should have gone for the specialists sooner.

 

[Binnie]

Sadly, this is the state of medicine as I've seen it lately, and only sometimes do the specialists help!

DD (now almost 5) had ear infections from 14 months until they put tubes in at 18 months--at my insistence. I had asymptomatic ear infections as a child, and so did DD.

After that, she started coughing nearly every night until she vomited. She was treated for severe asthma from 18 months until age 3.5, when she needed another set of tubes and I convinced her ENT to take her tonsils and adenoids (she had repeated strep throat, which was how the convincing happened). When they took her adenoids, the ENT discovered that they were very infected and larger than her tonsils, so nothing could get out of her sinuses and they would literally choke her when she laid down.

I got lucky that I'm obnoxious enough to make the specialist listen, but there wasn't anyone else out there who was really trying to help me out, either. We were literally at the pediatrician's office about once a week, and no one could figure out what she needed, and we found it on a fluke.

On the plus side, her surgery was 18 months ago, and there's such an incredible improvement that I forget how bad it was...

The lesson I learned was how essential it was to be DD"s advocate. No one else--even the best pediatrician in the world--will care as much as you do.

 

[allyphoe]

I believe he has been lactose intolerant

Barring galactosemia, babies are virtually never "lactose intolerant." Human milk has far more lactose than cow's milk formula.

Cow's milk protein allergy is very common, though. I'd suspect that before I went looking for zebras like lactose.

 

[Magpie]

The important thing is that you've found a solution (soy milk) and your baby is healthier! Go, Grandma!

Doctors aren't psychic or all-knowing. All they can do is suggest solutions. You just have to keep trying different things, asking questions and do what works.

Just for example, here's my 12yo son: Difficulty learning to chew and swallow, late speech, fluid in his ears, mild absence seizures, missing tooth enamel, flat feet, left handed, hyper-flexible joints causing problems with his gross motor development, fine motor delays, learning disability, anxiety, hypoglycemia, croup every year (still!), er... I'm pretty sure I've forgotten some stuff.

More important than all that, though, is the fact that he's a great kid. He's highly intelligent, works hard, and has lots of friends.

Sometimes I really wish I could just put together all of my son's symptoms and say, "Here's the cause, it was this ONE thing. We fix it and everything's fine!"

What I've discovered, however, is that's not ever going to be the case where my son's concerned. And the odds are very good that not all of your baby's symptoms will line up neatly, either. Your baby is far more likely to have a combination of several common issues, than one single rare one.

My DD takes DGS to the largest pediatrician group in our town (ironically, the same practice I took her to as an infant) ... so it's not easy for her to ask for another doctor in the practice ... they sort of rotate you around for well and sick visits ... should we just bail out and find a new pediatrician, should we sit down with current doctor and read the riot act ...

I think you all might be happier with a single family doctor, than a rotation of physicians who don't know you well. If you can find a good one for your daughter, by all means, encourage her to switch!

 

[BellePrincessBelle]

Barring galactosemia, babies are virtually never "lactose intolerant." Human milk has far more lactose than cow's milk formula.

Cow's milk protein allergy is very common, though. I'd suspect that before I went looking for zebras like lactose.

So true but most doc's jump to lactose intollerance first.

 

[mhsjax]

Barring galactosemia, babies are virtually never "lactose intolerant." Human milk has far more lactose than cow's milk formula.

Cow's milk protein allergy is very common, though. I'd suspect that before I went looking for zebras like lactose.

I have one that is a milk protein, they just don't know which one and at what level cooking destroys it. It is horrible.

My pediatrician, actually 2 of them told me that if they can't handle yogurt, then it isn't lactose. Apparently there isn't lactose in yogurt because of the way it is cultured.

I am also one of those people that believe that cows milk doesn't do a body good, but that is a whole different discussion.

 

[Christine]

I have one that is a milk protein, they just don't know which one and at what level cooking destroys it. It is horrible.

My pediatrician, actually 2 of them told me that if they can't handle yogurt, then it isn't lactose. Apparently there isn't lactose in yogurt because of the way it is cultured.
I am also one of those people that believe that cows milk doesn't do a body good, but that is a whole different discussion.

This is true. Yogurt starts out with lactose but the probiotics destroy it when cultured so lactose-intolerant folks can eat yogurt.

 

[Bilberry]

I agree and my guess is with the problem being most likely an allergy to cows milk, which is common, instead of lactose intolerance. Another guess would be celiac disease, if wheat had been added to the diet/ in formula.

My experience is that doctors, in general, tend to know little about nutrition.
I thought this nephrologist gave a good explanation on why that is when he wrote an article to an inquisitive University student about that topic.

http://nephropal.blogspot.com/2010/07/problem-with-modern-medicine.html

 

[laughinplace199]

It sounds like you may benefit from finding a pediatrician that you can see every time instead of rotating between different drs all the time. My oldest child is 11, so we've known our ped for 11 years now. We see him for all of their scheduled appts, and when we need an appt for an unexpected illness or injury, the office does their best to have him see us. He knows (and remembers) every little thing about my kids, their medical histories, their personalities, etc., so it's easy for him to see the big picture when one of the kids has an issue.