Saturday, January 29, 2011

Congestion is Snot Fun

One of the things keeping us busy in recent months has been, in a word, snot.

The sinus fairy blessed the boys with powerful and persistent congestion problems back in the fall. Though not among the most dramatic challenges we faced in 2010, the problem certainly has been frustrating.

And we haven't really identified a source yet. In the fall, we assumed it was allergies. Then we thought it was a cold. And since both boys have been teething so much (I'm beginning to think they're part shark), that seems to be adding to the problem.

It's been snot city around here. Remember this scene from Ghostbusters?



Kinda like that. (Just don't call William as "an ugly little spud" even if he does slime you. He will revenge pee on you.)

One of the ways we've been combatting their congestion is with breathing treatments.


Most of the time, breathing treatments don't annoy William too much.

The sinus drainage also tends to set off their gag reflex and cause them to vomit (which they're more likely to do being tube-fed kids), so we've fought hard to hold back the slime. We've done the allergy medicine thing and the cold medicine thing and the breathing treatment thing and we've used teething stuff to help with that. We recently went to an allergist who did skin tests and showed that apparently, they aren't allergic to anything except lack of attention, which they react violently to.

Over time, John-Raven seems to have shaken most of his congestion. William's has lingered, and a bout with some sort of cold in December didn't help.


William took a few days to fight off his cold (complete with high fever, inability to keep anything down, etc.) I always hate to see the boys feel so cruddy, but they usually keep a good attitude. And they support each other, too...

Solidarity, my brother!

Since the allergist ruled out allergy issues, we're next taking William to an ENT (ear nose throat) doctor. Since William has almost always had a tendency to snore, I have suspicions that he has some other issues going on. Here's hoping we get some answers.

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