Our first post in 2012! I'm happy to report that our lack of posting is due to a lack of Crohn's related issues to report. Crohn's disease has not been the major health impediment to my son that I know it could be. That's not to suggest that he's not impacted by Crohn's on a day-to-day basis... just that things are very under control.
Since starting kindergarten in September, he has had three week-long stints of nothing but EleCare in order to get him feeling good and back to normal. He's averaging about 8-10 weeks between an exclusive EleCare diet, where "exclusive" implies that he drinks EleCare as his sole source of food (with the exception of gummy bears, lightly flavored carbonated water, and an occasional Pediasure for flavor variety). The nutritionist said he could have gummy bears! During those 8-10 off-weeks, he continues to supplement daily with EleCare. We find (like yesterday) that when our son doesn't get some daily EleCare (extra calories) - he becomes quite a monster... which is no surprise.
I think our son has become pickier with food recently, and more often will reach for the EleCare over what is put in front of him at the dinner table. This creates a bit of a dilemma for us as parents, because on the one hand he is embracing his "medicine" -- and on the other, he is rejecting the meal that we put hard work into! We are fairly confident that he is being "picky", rather than consciously or subconsciously thinking that a food will hurt his tummy.
Height-wise, I'd say he is due for a growth spurt soon... though he was right on track with a normal growth curve 6 months ago. Weight-wise, the kid is just a solid little beef-cake... not a trace of fat on his little 6 year-old body, but just solid and dense as a rock.
Emotionally and socially, he is clearly still lagging and I think Crohn's is partly to blame for this. The year we spent trying to figure out how to treat Crohn's, between meds and the SCD, really put him behind in many facets of life. While he has mostly caught up physically and academically, he is not quite there yet emotionally and socially. However, there is some reason to believe that this is not entirely due to Crohn's either... :)
Thanks for reading... if you have questions, please post comments and we'll respond asap.
