8 Year Well Child Visit

Only 7 months after Kaitlyn turned 8 I was able to get her in for her well child visit. I had to pick her up early from school today to go. I was anticipating the only issue we would really have to discuss about her were her possible broken fingers. That turned out to be much more minor though.

You see when I got there they asked me to do this breathing study for her. I figured okay no big deal not much could come of this. I gave it back to them and they looked it over and the doctor said I think she has asthma. Uhhh, what? Asthma? That wasn't what I was expecting. She coughs a lot at night, but I thought it was dry air or allergies or something because it has always been a dry cough. She does it often enough at night and occasionally during the day enough that it has them thinking a mild case of asthma.

So now I have to make a choice. Does she get an inhaled steroid to treat this or a chewable pill? Both have side effects. Both have side effects that are very rare. Sounds like the doctor thinks generally the steroids work better. It's such a small amount of actual steroid she would get too.

I have to take her for some lab work tomorrow to check out how everything else is working in her and find out if she has any allergies. And then next week we go back with my decision on steroids or not and we make our plan of action for her.

In the mean time the doctor wants to see if a nebulizer type treatment helps her to sleep better at night. Looks like even though I usually say no to the flu shot for my kids I will have to get one for Kaitlyn though.

If Kaitlyn's fingers aren't better in a few days (when we go back for her appointment next week) then the doctor will send us to a hand doctor. Her fingers look better to me though. And we have permission to buddy tape her fingers too so she's not completely immobile.

Other than all that she's doing well. She weighs 79 pounds and was 52 inches tall. She got her Hep A shot. Her ear test went well. I do need to take her to the eye doctor though. She'll probably need glasses. This was when Natalie got glasses. The doctor was happy to hear she's getting the help that she needs in school for her reading finally too. Also happy to hear how much she loves math :). She said she always likes to hear when girls like math. Future doctor maybe?

Now I'm off to research. Steroid inhaler or Singulair to treat asthma.