GI Appointment

The liver is functioning fine and the numbers are good, but there is scar tissue in the liver. He also has portal hypertension, this is what has caused the umbilical vein to reopen and drain the extra blood that is going to the liver. So, basically the liver has found a way to take care of itself and the Dr. does not want to mess with that. As with the kidneys, there is no need for a transplant right now because his hypertension is under control, and since the body is taking care of itself they don’t want to do anything major until they have to.

So, the signs for the hypertension that we are to watch for are swelling/ water retention and vomiting blood.

If his hypertension were to get bad, he could have to have a liver transplant and also his esophagus veins could fill up (like varicose veins) this can be potentially life threatening and would require surgery to clamp or close the veins. Hopefully, we will never get to this point.

We also met with a nutritionist, to get Bentley on a high caloric diet. This is to help him gain weight and grow. After talking with the Dr. and the nutritionist, we were informed to take him off all milk. Goat and Cow milk have similar protein in them and we think that he is sensitive/ allergic to cow’s milk, so they have put us on a Soy Pediatric Drink. The hard thing with this is it isn’t sold anywhere around here, so we have to order it online. This is not a bad thing, just inconvient. We also have to watch to make sure that he doesn’t become allergic to soy. Thankfully, there are still more alternatives.

The GI Dr. wants to get some more blood work done, but wants us to wait to get it done until the Nephrologist decides what testing he wants to do so that we can get it done all at one time. The GI Dr. wants to check his vitamin levels and to find out if he has celiac. Celiac disease can inhibit growth, and food allergies run high in my side of the family. The GI Dr. went to see if she could talk to the Nephrologist during our appointment, but he was in his other office today. So, they will be conferring and figuring out what exactly is going on. Until then, we still don’t have a lot of answers.

We have a follow up appointment with the GI Dr. in three months (6/29), because as of right now, all we can do is monitor him and try to beef him up!