Interesting Diagnosis

As most of my readers already know, Ashley is small. Tiny small. I just weighed her this week and at five and a half years old she weighs in at a whopping 28.5lbs! Small. Jake who is three years younger weighs ten pounds more that than.

Ashley was born at 7 pounds 8 ounces, perfectly average but has become a peanut over time which has been somwhat concerning to us. Last year we put her through some tests (blood work, colonoscopy, etc) to see if there was a reason for it but everything came back perfectly normal. We just know she eats like a bird and likes healthy foods. Imagine that. Maybe there is no problem!?

Last week my friend convinced me to take Ash in to see her father who is a homeopathic chiropractor of sorts. He turned out to be very impressive and through lots of different "energy feeling" and checking her body out he came to a surprising conclusion!

He said that he could feel that her little stomach was hooked up over her diaphram muscle and it had created a natural stomach staple! The amount of her stomach that was filling with food was just a tiny part -- which explained SO MUCH!! Why she says she's full after eating so little, asking for snacks so often and eating only a little bit!! I couldn't believe it! So he pushed on her belly as if he were trying to rotate a breach baby and that almost made her cry but she was brave. He said you never know how long it will stay where it is supposed to be, BUT when we got home that night she ate THREE SLICES OF FROZEN PIZZA (small ones but still that is unprecidented)!! I could not believe my eyes!

All week she has been eating so much more. Saying she is hungry a lot more and eating at least double the amount of food she used to. Roast and potatoes, bean burritos, grilled cheese, bagels and cream cheese, and not just a couple bites! ... I keep wondering if I am crazy, but the change has got to be legit.

I am excited to start weighing her on a more regular basis to see how this helps the her to grow. I figure if she can take in an addtional 300-500 calories a day she will begin to put some meat on her bones. Plus she's supposed to be taking lots of good vitamins he recommended like B6 B12 and iron which we are teaching her to gag down in grape juice.

Interesting, huh?
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And while I'm at it, I'll share this about Luke too. He has been a kid who comes down with fevers almost everyone month for a couple of days his whole life. It is sad and also perplexing. Once I heard what this Dr found was wrong with Ash I had him look at Lukey too. The main point of what he told me what to STOP giving the tylenol/IBprophen during his fevers (I was faithful about it). He said that I have to let his fevers run full course, even as high at 104 105 only using baths to cool him in order for his body to finally be able to kill what it is it's fighting. He said that if I let his nest three fevers go untreated they should stop entirely. Wow.

It is his belief that Luke has had a mild upper lung infection since he was born that his body keeps trying to get rid of, but never gets the chance because I lower the fever. Hum. makes me feel really smart.