Ethan went in for a quick evaluation at Children's on Wed (9/8/10). Ethan's breathing has become noisier lately and we decided to have it checked out.
In short, they don't really know why his breathing has changed. They suspect that his mandibular hypoplasia has something to do with it but the doctor is not overly concerned with how his breathing sounds right now; it is an issue worth investigating but nothing to be overly worried about.
They will schedule another swallow study (recall one was done back in September) and try to coordinate a sleep study with his upcoming epibulbar dermoid removal surgery (if they can coordinate this, it means one two night stay as opposed to two one night stays).
The swallow study is more to examine why Ethan has trouble swallowing 'real' food (as opposed to the Gerber stuff). Ethan can currently eat/swallow bits of banana, avocado, and chopped up baby sausages - but they all have to be chopped up into very small/fine pieces. However, his doctor after today's visit thinks that the breathing and eating are all interrelated with the mandibular hypoplasia. A swallow study may be helpful in identifying why he has difficulty eating/swallowing larger pieces of food.
The sleep study is to simply get more information (which may not be actionable). The doctor already said that he suspects the sleep study will come back abnormal but not 'horrible'. Which translates into 'do nothing'. They simply want to rule out the 'anything horrible' possibility. In unlikely event that 'horrible' will appear in the sleep study results, then they will put early jaw surgery back on the table as an option.
- bob
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Wow, I had no idea that would even consider jaw surgery this young. I had mine in 2007 at the age of 23, so I hope everything turns out okay, and good luck!
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