Every year millions of children end up in the emergency room. And yet,
even with the best educated doctors and millions of dollars worth of diagnostic
equipment, sometimes doctors can’t figure out what’s wrong.
Two days ago, 9-month-old Prescott fell down a flight of stairs.
“How many times has he vomited?” asks Dr. Lonnie King,
emergency pediatrician at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
“It’s been constant,” his mom replies.
Constant vomiting – but what’s the cause?
“I think the big thing we have to confirm is that he doesn’t
have a head injury,” says the doctor.
Prescott is given a cat scan.
“I’m still looking for the official report from the
radiologist,” Dr. King tells the family, “but I don’t
see anything that would explain this level of lethargy and vomiting.”
The doctor says it could be something called intussusception.
“The bowel is like a tube, and part of that tube just slips
in on the adjacent part and then … there’s swelling
from that and then that swelling causes more blockage,” explains
Dr. King. “Then they can have vomiting and they can be lethargic.”
For that, Prescott is given an ultrasound. It, too, reveals nothing.
He’s given fluids and some medicine for nausea, and, amazingly,
within hours he’s doing better. No fever, no head injury,
no symptoms of a virus.
But there is another possibility – yogurt. He could have
a food allergy.
“He had had a new food two hours before vomiting, so could
it be that it was a kind of allergic reaction or an adverse reaction
or it just didn’t sit well with him,” the doctor says.
More testing will show if he does in fact have an allergy, but
for now he can go home.
“He’s feeding right and his color looks good,” says
Dr. King. “He looks good, he’s been active and alert,
but I still can’t tell you 100 percent what this was. And I
don’t like that. So, if there’s any problems, you come
back.”
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