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marydellAs much as I enjoy reading other parents' developmental updates about their little ones, I've never done one for Charlie. I intended to do them monthly, at the beginning, but because of the way his delays have happened I didn't have the heart for it. We expected delays in gross & fine motor skills, and we were lining up a therapist to work on those with us when he was about 2 months old.
Then came the rash of doom. Starting in September of 2008 and going through February of 2009, Charlie had an itchy rash on his face, scalp, and torso most of the time. (Here is one of the few pics I posted that shows a relatively bad rash day. The white stuff is Eucerin cream, which it turned out he's allergic to, ARGH) Even on good days, his right cheek would be red from him rubbing it. During this whole period we very frequently had to put a sock on his hand in the daytime to keep him from scratching while he was out of our reach at daycare; he also had to wear a hat a lot of the time to keep him from reaching his scalp, and he had to sleep in a tight swaddle blanket every night and every nap. The poor little guy was itchy pretty much all the time, and needed a pacifier every moment of the day and night to help soothe him from the constant itching. WIthout all of these measures, he would bloody his face or scalp at the first opportunity. We had some periods of respite when he would be on an antibiotic or a steroid, but overall he didn't respond to standard eczema treatments and we were suspecting there was a food allergy underlying the flare-ups. Unfortunately, because his skin was never totally clear it was impossible to do proper oral challenge tests--he would eat, and we would go "does his rash look like it's worse? Maybe if we look at him under a different light..."
In January of 2009 his skin got infected, and the infection jumped to his airway, and we spent 3 days in the hospital, including one night where he had to be on oxygen. Also there was a pile of prednisolone and nebulization and talk of chronic asthma No talk of allergies, however...dumbasses.
After the hospital stay we took him off of solid food entirely, and found an excellent pediatric dermatologist, who diagnosed the skin infection as well as giving us a good eczema-management regimen and some very strong steroid skin creams. We also got my allergist to do a skin test, even though that's usually not accurate in little babies and they can only test a few substances at a time. It turned out that it was accurate, maybe because so many of his reactions are skin-based. Anyway, with the help from the dermatologist we were able to get his skin to a baseline/clear state and start identifying his allergies by watching for rash reactions. We were able to leave the sock off of his hand most days, and let him sleep unwrapped, start a limited set of solid foods, and finally get most of his development on track again after months of basically preventing him from rolling, pushing up, using his hand, or eating new flavors and textures.
The itching hasn't gone away, but it's manageable; tubes in his ears have made it so he can hear consistently instead of being muffled half the time and clear the other half, which cleared the way for him to start learning to talk. So now we have a situation where he's delayed--which is fine--but we are not constantly having to get in his way and cause more delays in order to protect his skin & health--which was unbearable--or ignore obvious development stuff that needed work because the health problems took priority. For the past four months or so we've been able to really focus exclusively on developmental stuff, which is such a relief.
Therefore! Later today or tomorrow I'll do a proper developmental post like a proper mommy blogger. Whee!
Then came the rash of doom. Starting in September of 2008 and going through February of 2009, Charlie had an itchy rash on his face, scalp, and torso most of the time. (Here is one of the few pics I posted that shows a relatively bad rash day. The white stuff is Eucerin cream, which it turned out he's allergic to, ARGH) Even on good days, his right cheek would be red from him rubbing it. During this whole period we very frequently had to put a sock on his hand in the daytime to keep him from scratching while he was out of our reach at daycare; he also had to wear a hat a lot of the time to keep him from reaching his scalp, and he had to sleep in a tight swaddle blanket every night and every nap. The poor little guy was itchy pretty much all the time, and needed a pacifier every moment of the day and night to help soothe him from the constant itching. WIthout all of these measures, he would bloody his face or scalp at the first opportunity. We had some periods of respite when he would be on an antibiotic or a steroid, but overall he didn't respond to standard eczema treatments and we were suspecting there was a food allergy underlying the flare-ups. Unfortunately, because his skin was never totally clear it was impossible to do proper oral challenge tests--he would eat, and we would go "does his rash look like it's worse? Maybe if we look at him under a different light..."
In January of 2009 his skin got infected, and the infection jumped to his airway, and we spent 3 days in the hospital, including one night where he had to be on oxygen. Also there was a pile of prednisolone and nebulization and talk of chronic asthma No talk of allergies, however...dumbasses.
After the hospital stay we took him off of solid food entirely, and found an excellent pediatric dermatologist, who diagnosed the skin infection as well as giving us a good eczema-management regimen and some very strong steroid skin creams. We also got my allergist to do a skin test, even though that's usually not accurate in little babies and they can only test a few substances at a time. It turned out that it was accurate, maybe because so many of his reactions are skin-based. Anyway, with the help from the dermatologist we were able to get his skin to a baseline/clear state and start identifying his allergies by watching for rash reactions. We were able to leave the sock off of his hand most days, and let him sleep unwrapped, start a limited set of solid foods, and finally get most of his development on track again after months of basically preventing him from rolling, pushing up, using his hand, or eating new flavors and textures.
The itching hasn't gone away, but it's manageable; tubes in his ears have made it so he can hear consistently instead of being muffled half the time and clear the other half, which cleared the way for him to start learning to talk. So now we have a situation where he's delayed--which is fine--but we are not constantly having to get in his way and cause more delays in order to protect his skin & health--which was unbearable--or ignore obvious development stuff that needed work because the health problems took priority. For the past four months or so we've been able to really focus exclusively on developmental stuff, which is such a relief.
Therefore! Later today or tomorrow I'll do a proper developmental post like a proper mommy blogger. Whee!
