Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Rhett

...For about a month, Rhett has been complaining about his stomach hurting after he ate. For longer than a month, he has had other small complaints, like his chest hurt or his throat hurt or he didn't get much sleep one night but because it was sporadic (one morning his throat hurt, two days later it was his chest) I never got that somehow all of his symptoms were connected.

Until we went to the doctor yesterday. When he was telling her about his stomach (and we didn't even mention the other symptoms) she immediately said "Acid Reflux." She said it was that or it could be stress. Apparently, when adults are stressed, we get a headache. Kids who are stressed get stomach aches. Interesting.

Honestly, this whole month, I thought Rhett was just stressed. And who wouldn't be if you didn't feel very good all of the time and had weird things wrong with you. That would make anyone's stomach hurt.

So when we got home, I googled Acid Reflux and one of the first symptoms was "chest pain." Ahh. Immediately, all the times he said, "Mom, my chest hurts" came back to me (also the memory of me saying, "Go get a drink, you are probably dehydrated" came back as well) and then there were all the mornings I told him to drink orange juice after he told me about his throat hurting. Yeah, orange juice. Probably the worst thing for him.

Anyways.

I am glad we went to the doctor and hopefully, in a few days he will feel like himself again. And I have a list of things that could make his reflux worse so I'll be sure to let him know the things that he should try to stay away from, at least most of the time.

And I won't be giving him any more orange juice.

2 comments:

H Noble said...

Hindsight, huh? Don't beat yourself up about it- you're not expected to just know everything. Hope the treatment plan they have for him kicks it and he gets to feeling much better!

Anonymous said...

Casey had stress related ulcers as a little kid...who knew?! Luckily, Rhett's issues didn't get that far. Hope he is feeling better soon!

Christy