We saw the pediatrician at the very end of February with vertigo, headaches, and light headedness. She referred us to the ENT. The ENT did not find anything wrong with her inner ears, and thought the symptoms were being caused by her headaches. He said the next step would to be the neurologist. A couple of days after the ENT, it was time for our monthly Orthodontist appointment. She is very close to getting her braces off. Just a few more months of wearing her bands. Unfortunately with the headaches she has not been wearing them as much as she should, so she might have to keep them on a month longer. A few days after the ENT, it was time for the neurologist. He diagnosed her as having migraines. He headaches had been becoming a lot worse, and very frequent. He said he was not going to order a MRI because she was wearing braces. It seems if you have braces you can not have an MRI unless you go to the Orthodontist and have them removed. Once the MRI is over, you can put them back on. Since we are so close to the end, he said it was definitely not worth going through all the trouble. He put her on a preventative med that will take a few weeks to kick in. We were relieved to have a diagnosis, but the headaches seemed to get much worse after starting her new med.
One of the only things that seemed to help was drinking caffeine. OTC Ibuprofen was not really helping much. Yesterday he prescribed a daily pain med to take twice a day until the preventatives kick in, which he said could be at least two more weeks. Last week, she was supposed to be in dance class, but was having another bad migraine. She leaned her head back against the wall, and I saw her thyroid was very swollen.
I took some photos to show the pediatrician, since I was taking her older sister there for her yearly check up this week. She took one look at this photo and said we had to bring her in right away. We saw the Dr. yesterday. It was not quite swollen as it was the day I took the picture, but it was still a lot larger than it should be. This is not the first time we have had dealt with thyroid issues in the family. A couple of years ago I had my own issues which you can read about here. Her older sister also has issues with her thyroid. After her appointment, we went straight to the lab for a blood draw. We got the results today. Her numbers are good, BUT she tested positive for antibodies. She too, has an autoimmune thyroid. Having this could be the reason why she has been having so many headaches and other issues. There is some positive news to finding out about this so young. With our family history, there was a very high chance she was going to develop it at some point in her life. Since we already knows she has it, we can regularly monitor her thyroid, and keep it in check before it gets really bad..
A couple of the appointments this month were for my oldest. She saw went to the Endocronologist early in the month Remember this? It took us an hour and a half to drive the 20 miles to the appointment.
This week she had a well check up, and a routine blood draw. She is going to have an ultrasound next week because she has been having a lot of stomach pains. We are checking to make sure she does not have PCOS, or something else causing all the pain. She has been really worried that it is something more serious (thanks internet!) . Next month we already have several more appointments on the schedule. We have follow up appointments at the Endocrinologist, Orthodontist and Neurologist. I am also going to get into the mix and go to my annual physical (4 months late!) Hopefully things will slow down after that, at least go down to only one or two Dr appointments a month.
