Pediatrician appointment

Today we went and saw Matthew's pediatrician for an evaluation for ADHD.

We started out with a cutie little nurse checking us in and taking Matthew's vitals and we mentioned that he had complained about blurred vision recently - and she did a quick vision check on him as well (which told us that we need to visit the optomitrist soon).  Somewhere in the talking with this gal, we mentioned to her that the school was who was inisting we come in for this evaluation appointment & she laughed and said "it's always the school..."  I thought this was funny...

We waited a bit and then the DR came in and she was very thankful for all of our completed paperwork that had been turned in last week & she really liked the notes/letters that the teacher and school counselor included as well... All of that information helped her a lot in getting a picture of what Matthew is like at school.

She then went on to ask lots of questions about how Matthew is at home with us, and what the issues were at school as we understood them. We talked a lot about that & we shared how the elimination of wheat has seemed to improve his symptoms of ADHD. She stated that there is not much scientific evidence that proves that elimination diets work for ADHD... I told her that we didn't care what science says - we know that Matthew is a different person without wheat.

She asked Matthew how he felt and what areas of concern he had as well. He shared the book that we had been reading and showed her the checklists inside of it that show how he feels.

She then went on to explain the results of the Vanderbuilt tests we took (we as parents, and then the teacher) - both tests showed that he has ADHD. She explained what that means - and the treatment options that different people choose. Some work with behavioral therapists, some choose to medicate their kids, and some choose other options.  She went into how medicines would work - she generally prescribes the stimulant type of medicine - Adderall or Concerta (I think) were the two that she mentioned. And that she starts children out at the lowest doses she can and then see how they react to them - watching for sleeplessness, weight loss, headaches, stomach aches and some other rarer side effects.  She also talked a lot about no medicine is a magic-cure - that the child still has to WANT to do what he needs to do in school - that the medicine just provides some stimulation in the brain where it is being a bit "lazy" and it helps the child focus on what needs to be done.

We talked about how he is feeling better being off of wheat products, and she asked us if we would like him to have a simple blood test for celiac disease. They look for antibodies to gluten in the bloodstream... She checked with another doctor to make sure that after 2 weeks of being off of wheat products that there would still be something there to look for (antibody wise).  Since we hadn't gone totally GLUTEN-FREE (only wheat free) they stated that a blood test would be valid at this point. So she put in orders for blood work.

She also stated that even if the blood tests come back negative for celiac disease, it doesn't mean that he doesn't have a gluten intolerance.

She told us she would call with the results in a few days. She gave us a letter to provide to the school stating that she had diagnosed him with ADHD and requesting them to start a 504 education plan to put in writing the accomodations that are needed in the classroom for him to succeed.  She also gave us a bunch of reading material to look at about ADHD. She said there really wasn't any follow up at this point, the ball was in our court on how we would like to proceed. We can keep seeing how well he does off of wheat and see if that makes enough of a difference for him to succeed, or in a week we may call her up and say we are ready to talk again about the option of using medicine to help provide the focus and such that he lacks.

So we left feeling good that we are in control - that it is our choice what to do to help our child succeed in life. For now we will provide the "diagnosis letter" to the school and see what that will prompt with them on getting a 504 plan in the works. And we will wait to hear back about the results of the blood tests and continue to support his wheat free diet.