The Visit

We took Lauren to the specialist today. Where do I begin...I will start with the plan. For the next four weeks, Lauren will be on a special diet. We have to start her on milk of magnesia until her stools become watery, then we start her on miralax (which she will be on until we see the doctor again in four weeks). We also need to take her off of the soy milk, benefiber, mineral oil, and apple juice. She will be on a liquid diet for the most part and I have to keep a poop diary to keep track of when she poops and if there is any blood in the stools. The goal is to have this regimin stop the bleeding, but if it doesn't, she will have to have a barium enema. It doesn't look like she will have to have a scope done at this point, but I'm hoping that she won't have to have the enema done. The doctor was really awesome and very informative. We discussed different things that could be causing this, such as Cystic Fibrosis and Hershbaumers(?), which Lauren has a slim chance of having these, so they want to cover all bases and make sure she doesn't have them. I wanted to cry when she mentioned these things, but I held it off. The doctor also told us that the reason why Lauren likes to hide when she poops is because she is trying to not poop because at some point she had a traumatic poop experience that she doesn't want to repeat, which is why we are trying to clean out her bowels and keep the stools as soft as possible. The doctor checked Lauren's bowels and said they felt good and there was no blockage. She also did a rectal exam, which Lauren tolerated very well, what a trooper! She said that Lauren's rectum was good, so we'll just have to wait and see what happens over the next four weeks.