Ethan's snoring has become demonstrably worse in the last few months so we called it in. After a cursory examination by his pediatrician and then by Craniofacial at Children's, it was decided to do another sleep study.
The results were quite bad. His oxygen saturation levels were down significantly since his last sleep study (down to about 86% at one point) and he had a significant jump in the number of apnea events - especially during REM sleep which is when the number should go down.
Ethan will be seeing a number of his doctors in a couple of weeks for his regular 6 month followups. One of them will be ENT which will probably take a good look into his airway to see just what is going on.
However, his sleep study doctor did not want to wait even a few weeks without doing anything so Ethan is now on oxygen when he goes to bed. This basically involves putting a tube around his face that supplies oxygen through the nose. This tube is connected to a small oxygen tank (that is refilled every 24/48 hours by a very large unit that looks a little like a Dalek (a Dr. Who reference for the uninitiated)). We tape the hose to his face and run it down under his clothes to minimize any kind of accidental strangulation risk.
The oxygen will continue at least until he has his appointments. Longer term actions will be determined by what the doctors find at his upcoming appointments. Most likely a tonsillectomy will be involved.
Adequate deep sleep is crucial in that the body generates/releases growth hormones during sleep in children.
- b
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment