Good Friday I. D. Check-Up
Image by Andrea Schwalm
Quarterly exam of the liver, spleen and skin topped off with a CBC (complete blood count)
We all went out to Mineola for the quarterly Immunology visit. James has been a healthy, thriving kid ever since he went on antibiotics at around three. Before the antibiotics, though, he was almost always sick. His body reacts to illness essentially by turning on the wrong immunoglobulin faucet and then letting that immunoglobulin fill the tub, flow out over the top, and flood the house…
His doctor has a couple of patients on sulfa drug therapy and all are doing extremely well. Additionally, sulfa drugs apparently have immuno-boosting qualities. All we know is that since James started this therapy, his IgE has hovered in the 350 range. Higher than average (100) but lower than the 2,500-3,000 he registered during his hospitalizations. And much, much lower than the diagnostic threshold of 1,000 (not to mention the chronically-destabilized children I have read about with IgE counts in the tens or fifties or hundreds of thousands.) He has responded beautifully to antibiotic therapy. Not all kids do.
Sometimes people ask me if I’m nervous about keeping my son on longterm antibiotic therapy (the same people that tend to worry about my children’s social lives now that I have begun homeschooling). I absolutely am not. This medicine has afforded my son a happy, normal middle childhood. He wouldn’t have had that, otherwise. Wouidn’t (possibly) still be alive.
In light of the facts: there is no "choice."
