Virus?

Baby E apparently has a virus. Her symptoms are mostly severe watery diarrhea and general miserableness; no fever, rash or vomiting. She was up most of the night, being really uncomfortable.

At first I thought it was just a reaction to something she or I ate. It's really hard to tell the difference between an illness and an adverse food reaction. But this is too severe and lasting too long to be a reaction to something consumed one time, so unless she's suddenly developed an allergy to something like chicken or rice, I think it's a virus.

Especially considering that another child she's been in close contact with has had exactly the same symptoms for a week or more. Her doctor told her mother that the severe diarrhea from this particular bug is lasting up to 2 weeks.

So, no biggie. Just a virus. Keep her hydrated and feed her the BRAT diet, and she'll be fine. Right?

Except that she can't have any of the things that are normally recommended for toddlers with diarrhea.

#####################

I called the pediatrician's nurse, who went through the list of things they usually recommend. There were two things on the list she could have. Two. Potatoes, which she won't eat, and rice, which we only have in the whole-grain version (not recommended).

We can't give her Pedialyte or anything like that, of course, because they're all corn-based. Can't even do plain water, because of the aspiration issue. It's a real challenge trying to get her to drink thickened water with no flavoring even when she's feeling well, and the juice we usually add in small amounts will, the Dr. said, make the diarrhea worse.

Finally, the ped's nurse said she didn't know what to recommend. She suggested we call the GI specialist or the dietician.

I left messages for both.

A few minutes ago the GI specialist on-call phoned us. He said to continue giving her small amounts of whatever is the most bland and low in sugar/fat that she normally eats, and as much breastmilk as she wants (although he said breastmilk wouldn't be enough to keep her from getting dehydrated). He said not to give her plain water or any juice at all, since that can worsen the situation.

He said, "Since she can't have Pedialyte, you'll almost certainly have to take her in to the ER for IV fluids."

At first he was leaning toward having me take her in right now, as a preventative measure. But since she's not presently showing signs of dehydration he asked several questions about how quickly we could get to an ER if we needed to, and what the care is like at our nearest hospital. The fact that we live near the newest hospital in the area with an excellent dedicated pediatrics ER helps.

So he said to keep a very close eye on her for signs of dehydration, and not to hesitate at all if we saw any, even if it didn't seem bad. He seemed to think she was likely to go downhill very fast if she started getting dehydrated at all, given her symptoms and situation.

I really hope that won't happen. If it does, we may be in for a challenge just trying to get corn-free IV fluids for her. I do have some recipes for homemade electrolyte replacement drinks that I could try (made of things like sugar, molasses, or orange juice combined with salt and/or baking soda). But since E doesn't tolerate sugars particularly well even when she doesn't have a virus, I don't know how that will go.

Meanwhile, AJ and M&M have their concert for the end of VBS (Vacation Bible School) this evening, and I really don't want to miss it. Also, our friend Dr. A was supposed to come over for dinner and then join us for the kids' performance. We have three different events we're supposed to attend tomorrow, church on Sunday, and another big family gathering on Monday.

Baby E is napping now. I'm still hoping it will turn out to be an allergic reaction and she'll wake up feeling fine, but I think the chances are pretty slim at this point.

Mainly, I'm just praying she won't get dehydrated. We've never had to deal with this particular issue before, so it's a new situation for us to learn how to manage.

Oh, just as I was about to hit post the nutritionist called. She was much more enouraging than the GI specialist was, and didn't seem nearly as worried. She said we may not even need to use a Pedialyte substitute, but gave me the electrolyte replacement drink recipe she recommends, and said we could even mix that in with Baby E's normal juice.

Otherwise, she said to pretty much give her whatever we can get her to eat and drink (within reason, of course), and try to get something with some sodium content into her along with the breastmilk and (watered-down thickened) juice she normally drinks to balance out the electrolytes. E has been asking for potato chips, so that shouldn't be too difficult. :)