Update on the Jayners

So, Jayna is doing much better. So much lack of communication or miscommunication, whatever you want to call it, from her pedicatrician. I need to know things. I don't like to just blindly trust people. When a doctor mentions something just in passing or as a sidenote, I may not take it as seriously as I should.

When I had Jayna at the doctor last Wednesday, I was told that her stomach issues were not related to her ear infection and that she had a stomach virus. I automatically didn't believe that she had a stomach virus because she just had diarrhea ONCE. I only mentioned the diarrhea because it happened around the same time that her ears began to drain and such. The nurse practitioner said, "Well, you may want to give her this probiotic because it helps with stomach viruses," and she gave me a pamphlet about a product called BioGaia.

I did not go buy the BioGaia. I don't want to just give my kid 17 different kinds of medications because she had diarrhea once. She continued to have the diarrhea like 4 or 5 times a day for 2 more days. And then I was SURE it was a reaction to her antibiotic. It was even accompanied by other reaction-type symptoms...rash, swelling, etc. I am not one for thinking doctors are wrong. I think that if you don't trust your doctor enough to listen to him/her, then you should find a different doctor. In this case, I thought the doctor was wrong when I was told that all of these things were NOT a reaction to her antibiotic and to keep giving it to her.

But what do you do? Do you give the kid the medicine that's making her poop all over herself 5 times a day but making her ears better or stop giving her the medicine that's making her ears better because she's pooping all over herself 5 times a day? What to do, what to do.

So, at my mom's recommendations, I called my aunt the nurse. She called a nurse practitioner friend of hers and her friend told her that I need to give Jayna something called Lactinex. And here's why: when someone is on antibiotics for an extended amount of time (especially babies), the antibiotics kills the flora (good bacteria) in the intestines. That good bacteria is what helps with proper digestion and bowel movements. Lactinex (A PROBIOTIC) is a replacement for the good bacteria that the amoxicillin and omnicef killed. This would help Jayna's diarrhea issue.

Now, was that so damn difficult?!? A 3 or 4 sentence explanation of what a probiotic is and how it will help my child doesn't seem like something that is NOT in a doctor's job description. Why didn't the nurse practitioner explain this to me? I thought the probiotic was a medication for stomach viruses, not a vitamin-type thing for flora replacement.

It makes perfect sense now. Yogurt helps intestinal issues. Probiotics have the same stuff as yogurt. Huh, who knew? So I spent a little while feeling like a bad parent because I didn't do what the doctor said. But did she really say it? Or did I just not listen?

She's doing better now. She'd been on the BRAT diet until last Friday and then I began introducing veggies back into her diet. Well, she went back on the BRAT diet on Sunday due to the diarrhea. She has to take her antibiotic until Wednesday, so it looks like the BRAT diet until then. Poor kid. Hopefully when the omnicef is gone, the diarrhea will be too.

Jayna will be six months old on Saturday. I still doubt EVERY decision I make when it comes to her. I'm totally going to screw her up...