Tuesday, 8 May 2012
Mesenteric adenitis anyone?
My ten-year-old daughter has had constant abdominal pain for the last 7 days. It is not relieved by paracetamol, ibuprofen or naproxen. It is a recurring pain and keeps her away from school.
Yesterday, we were given a diagnosis of mesenteric adenitis which is a inflammation of lymph glands in the abdomen. Evidently, it is common in children. If you have any experience of this condition and advice to offer, please feel free to give it!
Sorry I don't know anything about mesenteric adenitis but I do hope your daughter feels better soon. It doesn't sound like she is having a good time of it. Good luck with finding a way to treat it.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to tell you how much I love your raw edge quilt and show you mine. Thanks for the tutorial, it is a lovely quilt.
Hi Karyn! Have just popped over to your blog to admire your work. Great quilt and great story to go with it! You have made my day, and momentarily got my mind of pain and sickness - thank you!
DeleteHi my now 11yr old girl had it when she was 5. Sorry to say not fun. From what I can remember, very very bland diet, tiny serves and like only 3 mouthfuls was all she could stomach. It lasted for weeks...... treat a lot like gastro..... if you know what I mean. My daughter lost so much weight she looked like a stick insect, you can't stress about it but when she got better she ate like a horse for nearly 6 months! good luck. Chris (much71@optusnet.com.au) sorry i don't have a blog
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment Chris. Interestingly, she hasn't lost her appetite significantly. And no diarrhoea. It has us tricked. She has had the same symptoms on and off for years. Usually passes in 2-3 days. But not this time! Poor sweet. It's horrible for her.
DeleteBloom, i just want to say how much I really love your blog, and am so glad i stumbled onto your quilt tutorial; it just gave me the inspiration i was lacking. i am loving the quilt, it is so warm and snuggly and exactly what i wanted (minus the child of course!!!)
ReplyDeleteHope you have a good day and my thoughts go to your daughter.
Sorry to hear about your daughter. My daughter has also been through the ringer. She gets adominal migraines. Have the drs ruled this one out as the pain sounds very similar.
ReplyDeleteThanks Katherine. I did ask the dr about abdominal migraine, as migraines run in the family. The dr (who has been very approachable) didn't think it was a possibility as she wasn't showing any other typical migraine symptoms (vomiting, aura, avoidance of light, desire to sleep etc). It would be also unusual for migraine to endure for so long. It is tempting to try some migraine medication though to see if it makes a difference. Thanks for the suggestion.
DeleteThat doesn't sound like much fun at all. :(( I haven't even heard of this malady so I have no advice to offer, only sympathy. Hope she feels better soonest.
ReplyDeleteIt's always scary because it mimics appendicitis, but fortunately, it resolves with time. It's just really hard to get them to eat and drink. Electrolyte replacement fluids are a good thing (Gatorade, Pedialyte, etc).
ReplyDeleteMy neice's daughter had exactly the same problem, she suffered on and off for weeks. She was also diagnosed with Mesentaric Adenitis. My neice changed her daughters diet to gluten free and that seemed to help alot and also boosted her vitamin intake. Now instead of having the problem all the time she now only gets a bad bout every 5-6 weeks and usually only for a day.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry to hear your daughter is unwell. I hope you and her find ways to cope with the illness. ((hugs))
ReplyDeleteSo sorry to hear one of your girls is sick Ros. Hope you get some answers and she is better soon :)
ReplyDeletewill this mesenteric adenitis effected children have gastric symptoms
ReplyDeleteI also have an 11 year old who started out with flu and then abdominal pain has now stayed for 11 weeks....she also now gets reflux...regurtitation....and is lactose intolerant....she has always been a healthy child up till that time....we have been thru the ringer with tests prodding and proding her everywhere.....we have now been told it could be mesentric adenitis.....can anyone help...she also has the flu back again now and.it is enhancing.her symtpoms by ten....
ReplyDeleteMy son is 11 years old and is still in hospital as I type this for suspected mesenteric adenitis. It started with a cough a week prior and then vomiting and crampy stomach pains last Saturday so we thought it was just a gastro bug, although I thought it odd that there was no diarrhoea. So he ate very little for the 1st 4 days but then on the 4th evening, the pain got really bad so we took him to hospital. They queried appendicitis, but his white cell count was normal and he had no fever. But they admitted him and had him nil by mouth from Tuesday night until Thursday morning. He ate Thursday and pain had almost gone so they discharged him at around 2pm. He was OK Thursday night but my lunchtime Friday, the pains had come back even worse so we were back up the hospital for another canula, more nil by mouth and an enema as an abdo X-ray showed faecal loading (probably from all of the spewing/nil by mouth as the food wasn't pushing through his system). He started eating again yesterday morning and had some more pain in the afternoon, but then it settled down. Then out of the blue at about 7pm last night he got horrific cramps and explosive diarrhoea for about half an hour. It abated and today he seems better having eaten all day and had no more pain meds. So hopefully he will be discharged tomorrow. But he had another episode of this but with diarrhoea and the bad stomach pain back in January and he's been getting vague abdo pain for at least 12 months before and between these two acute episodes. Unfortunately, there's not much that can be done to prevent/treat this, but I am going to do my best to improve our overall health/immune systems as my son has brought home 5 bouts of colds/flu in the 13 months since his sister was born and has shared them with both of us each time. It's apparently been a bad year for lurgies, but we are usually much healthier and miss a lot of these bugs. So I think a dietary overhaul, emphasis on more sleep and continued/increased exercise is on the cards for all of us. I might also crank up our Vitamin C intake to fortify us a bit and will do some work on getting some fermented foods into us to fortify our gut flora. I might even get us in to see a naturopath (I haven't tried one before, but I am up for anything that avoids my son going through this again) and see if he/she can offer some suggestions.
ReplyDeleteRelief with the probiotic saccromyces.
ReplyDeleteI hope this helps someone-
ReplyDeleteI has mesenteric Adenitis just before my 13th birthday as a child and it started off with bad pain in the abdominal area, for a week I stayed home feeling sick when I ate and having pain and a fever. We went to the doctors and he sent us to the hospital, there are many serious and mild things that doctors can confuse this with so it was best to go to the hospital especially because this can be a sign/lead to apendicitis. once I got my medicine and left hospital I took it for about 2 week until I was no longer feeling sick about 3-4 weeks later it started again due to me not continuing this medicine as it can linger or reoccur easily.