Categories
health mia

Pediatric Rheumatologist Appointment

Little Miss had an appointment with the Pediatric Rheumatologist today.  I thought we’d have to wait until the beginning of 2015 to be seen, but they called last week and said they had an opening  (yay!).  No joint issues were obvious, but he noticed that her left leg muscles are larger than her right leg muscles.  He said this is sometimes seen when one leg is used to compensate for the other leg when kids have joint pain.  He is referring her to a Pediatric Ortho Doc and is recommending Physical Therapy to strengthen her right leg.  Once again, we have to wait for our insurance to pre-approve the treatment to see the Ortho doc, so we just wait.  He recommended PT twice a week for an indefinite period of time.  She is also being referred to a Pediatric Dermatologist for a few skin and fingernail issues.  He wants to make sure that she does, indeed, have eczema and not Psoriasis. Psoriasis is a concern because it can also affect the eye.  If it is Psoriasis, treatment would still be the same, but it’s just a good thing to know.

New blood tests were ordered today.  It took 3 sticks and 2 different phlebotomists to get blood.  She did SO WELL.  She cried a little, but it was mostly in anticipation of the needle.  How I wish I could  have the needle sticks in her place!  She amazes me that she is still so sweet and talkative even when she is crying and scared.  She was telling the phlebotomists about her brothers, video games, board games, unicorns, etc.  Fun Fact:  The phlebotomist who did her blood draw today was one of the ones who trained me when I was doing my clinical training in Med Tech school about 15 years ago.  That was pretty cool.  🙂

Categories
health mia

12/5/14 Eye Update

Today’s check-up went well.  Mia’s inflammation is no longer active.  It has mostly cleared up.  Whoo-hoo!!! We will be tapering down on the corticosteroid eye drops 6x/day this week, 4x/day next week, 3x/day the following week, 2x/day for a week, 1x/day another week, then no drops for a week before going in for her next follow-up in 7 weeks.  She still has a couple of spots of scar tissue on her iris, but the pupil shape has improved. We will continue with her eye drops for dilation until further notice.

The only problem today was that her ocular pressure was a little high.  This is likely due to the use of the steroid eye drops.  Since we have to continue using the steroid drops, we also have to add in another eye drop to combat the ocular hypertension twice a day.  So we are still having to do a TON of eye drops, but there is an end in sight.  After tapering down on the steroid drops, she may be able to go without them, or only need them occasionally to keep her eye healthy.

Her eye doc is happy with how things are progressing (as am I).  We still don’t have an appointment date for the pediatric rheumatologist since we are still waiting for pre-approval from insurance.  Mia’s vision is still improving little by little.  Since our next appointment isn’t until January 16, this will be the last eye update for 2014, assuming things go as planned and continue improving.  Thanks to everyone for the prayers and well-wishes!