2.5y old with lots of sickies and ennlarged adenoids

[BeantownBaby9]

 ladies, i am hoping you can help me get some answers or ideas for my really good friend's little boy.  His docs and all the Web MD stuff says surgry, but she wants to avoid that at all costs.  She's not supported by anyone around her as far as alternatives, so she's feeling hopeless and stuck.  I <3 her and  am trying to help by using the MDC  braintrust :)  Here's his story.......

He was BF for about 3 mo then FF until 1 yr.  He's fully vaxed but was on a spaced out schedule.  He needed "gentle tummy" formula, and once switching to milk, it at first didn't agree with him but lactaid seemed ok.  He had a bunch of ear  infections, then got tubes.  They seemed to help for a while, but the last 6 months have been rough.  He had an ER trip late 2010, "fuzzy" chest xray, blue lips and toes, paleness everwhere.  Acute bronchitis was the dx.  Rx'd a nebulizer for that episode.  He's seen an ENT and she says enlarged adenoids, 80% enlarged and they were rx'd Nasonex, which initially helped but has worn off its effectiveness.  During this time she also tried about 85% dairy free, never did a full trial but has kept it minimal.  He gets coughs when running or too active, his ears are still goopey, post tubes.  Green snot when he's sick.  The biggest concern now is he struggles to breathe at night, she can hear him alll the way down stairs.  He's never been a good sleeper and now he's worse than ever, up 6x a night sometimes.  His personality is changing too, he's not his happy go lucky self, and this kid is literally the nicest sweetest sunshinist kid I've ever met. 

TIA for helping with any info!

[EVC]

This probably isn't the answer you want, but I hope it will provide some comfort to your friend. Dd had A LOT of ear infections as a toddler (seriously, EVERY runny nose turned into an ear infection). She was also a snorer, and often sounded stuffy. Assuming it must be allergies, we had her tested for the likely culprits, but everything came back negative. Eventually her snoring started getting worse, and she began having episodes of apnea at night. It was almost IMPOSSIBLE to wake her in the morning because she was getting so little quality sleep. 

We went to her ped who checked her tonsils and immediately referred us to an ENT specialist. Their STRONG advice was surgery. I also wanted to avoid surgery and began looking into homeopathic remedies, consulted at length with a naturopath who ultimately also agreed with the ENT: the tonsils needed to come out, nothing was going to bring them back to normal size (except maybe time--a couple of years--but in the meantime, her health would suffer). 

So we did it. We had the surgery which removed BOTH her tonsils and adenoids. It was probably the scariest moment of my life when they took her into the operating room. I was terrified and already filled with regret about the whole.

But you know what? The night after the surgery was the probably the BEST sleep she had gotten in months. She no longer snores AT ALL and there is no apnea. She wakes up in the morning beautifully and seems refreshed. I have my happy baby back! This surgery--as scary as it was and as much as I worried about the effects removing the tonsils would have on her immune system--was truly a blessing. And because her sleep is better, she is healthier overall. 

So while I TOTALLY agree that surgery is a last resort, if it does come to that, it may really turn out for the best. We have no regrets. 

[SuburbanHippie]

I would put my child on a dairy-free diet for sure before I went ahead with surgery.  You should be able to tell within a couple weeks if it is helping.  Check out the allergy forum for more info.

[tanyalynn]

Food intolerances (not IgE allergies, I mean) can cause enlarged tonsils or adenoids.  DD's tonsils went down to regular size about a month after we took out gluten and dairy--and although she was waking some at night, I don't think it's nearly as significant as what you're describing, so I'm not sure how variable the timeframe would be to see a change.  The tonsils were the slowest improvement I saw.  I'd also consider a cranial-sacral therapist, they can help with the process.

With a history of seeing issues with milk, I'd start there (and really take it all out), but consider other common allergens like gluten and soy (soy is very cross-reactive with dairy, I guess consider soy before gluten in this case).