Sunday, January 18, 2009

Apnea anyone?

No time – but have to throw this out there. Hopefully next week will be kinder to me and I can have some additional time to blog.

Elliot cannot breathe at night. Yep, we’ve done the O2 thing – for over 18 months. I have noticed some symptoms for a few weeks now, but ignored some instincts as I thought that he had a slight cold or a small flu bug.

Last night I listened to him sleep (or try to sleep) for over an hour. He has some SERIOUS apnea – gasping all the while I sat next to his crib. He thrashed all over the place as well. Finally falling back asleep in his upright (leaning against the back crib rail) position.

Yes, to the ENT we will go (again). Anyone…advice?

8 comments:

Stephanie said...

Aiden has corrected for his apnea. He sleeps with his head tilted back.

Mommy to those Special Ks said...

Has he already had a T&A? I forget...

Carey said...

You could get a pic of him sleeping like that. We sure do get a kick out of it when Chels does it, but we're in the exact same boat here. I think I read somewhere that the tonsils/adenoids grow to their biggest around three or so. I know E's younger than Chels, but not by too far is he (maybe 6 months?) Anyways, I bet the ENT will recommend the T&A.

Our ped said Chels has the classic symptoms and the ENT will put her on flonase for a month before making any decisions, so our ped started her on this hoping the ENT will make a decision when we go see him Feb. 10. We'll see! I'd love to be sleeping through the night again!

Christina M said...

Did he have T&As out? Vince had apnea before and it is pretty much gone now (except for when he has a cold). His As blocked about 75% of the air trying to get through. KNOCK ON WOOD the kid has not needed antibiotics since 2007 due to this as well.

Best wishes

Michelle said...

Nope, no T&A yet, just the recent ear tubes. The ENT said that he did not want to do all three at once as E is just too medically fragile. I'm calling him this a.m. to set up our eval again...I too think that they need to come out. Thanks, ladies!

Ssejors said...

Hi there! I also have a son with Down Syndrome. He is almost 10 months old. For about 5 months I knew he had sleep apnea and when the growth and developement specialist came over one day I mentioned this to her. She got Hunter Bean in for a sleep study to confirm this. Sure enough, his Oxygen levels drop to about 80% in the middle of the night so he has been put on a CPAP machine.

Here is a link to some Wikipedia on CPAP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_airway_pressure

A continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine was initially used mainly by patients for the treatment of sleep apnea at home, but now is in widespread use across intensive care units as a form of ventilation.

It's a bit of a pain in the neck right now, trying to get a 10 month old to cooperate with a mask that continuously blows air in his nose, but the respitory therapists are very positive that he will be doing so much better as soon as he learns to sleep with it on. It can be very hard on their little bodies, lungs, hearts and brains to have their airways restricted.

Hope this helps. If you need any more info or wanna chat about anything feel free to email me. :D

Jess Aka Ssej

datri said...

Y'know, the first thing Dr. Capone wanted us to do was a sleep study for sleep apnea to rule that out as a cause for some of Kayla's autistic traits. So it's definitely worth looking in to. (BTW, Kayla only has mild sleep apnea, so mild her ENT didn't even think it was worth doing a T&A)

Michelle said...

I agree on the sleep study. It's worth it. Had Matthew's sleep apnea come back as mild we may have skipped the T&A. His test showed severe obstructive sleep apnea. It was scary - stats in the 60/70s at night. The T&A procedure was not that hard on Matthew. His ENT and pulmonoglist were both very worried about the recovery and airway but he ended up being fine. Two nights in the PICU and a pretty short recovery. He was about 15 months at the time of his procedure. We had another sleep study last fall and there were no signs of apnea. Good luck! Keep us posted.