Controversies
I love our new gastroenterologist. I really do. He's very friendly, compassionate and appreciative of my google searches. He embarces them, where I find most doctors simply tell you to stop googling.
I don't know how much I've put here ... while we were on vacation we got the results of G's second endoscopy. We knew, based on the pictures that we saw that day, that it was in no way cleared up. To my laymans eye, it looked much, much worse, even though he wasn't throwing up. So when the biopsies came back, and the doctor called me on Tuesday (while we were still in Colorado) and said that it was 3 or 4 times worse than it was in November, I was not surprised. Though I still cried. He was very kind to me. He told me, "he will be okay." And for some reason, when he said that, I believed him.
But it didn't stop me from crying.
The new course of action is to try new medication. Stop the old drugs, start the new, and do yet another scope in two months. The doctor was afraid I would fight him on the scope. It seems, most parents, are not inclined to do them repeatedly. Again I go back to my brain and try to understand the way it works. I don't know why ... but I hate the drugs more than I hate the endoscopy. And I would rather do the endoscopy, which seem to bother him none at all, than stay on the drugs. And if doing another endoscopy means I can quit the daily drugs, I'm all about that.
I also hope that all of this means that his appetite improves and he continues to gain more weight. We shall see.
But with all of this, there's been a lot of google searching. Lots of google searching. And it's not a pretty picture the internet paints. Yesterday I found a site that links EoE with autism. And therefore blames EoE (and it's rising victims) on vaccines. Such pleasant people, the anti-vaccine people. I don't want to argue about whether or not vaccines cause anything. I'm not intelligent enough to do that and that would make me as bad as some of the bloggers I found.
My point is this ... these bloggers rally around Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the doctor that said that the MMR vaccine caused autism. Forget that in 2010 he was discredited and his results were not repeateable. Because he falsefied his data, and manipulated his patients - children - to get the results that he wanted. Let's forget all that.
There's just him. One guy. One doctor. And they rally around him like a prophet, and cling to the idea that big pharma knew that their vaccines were dangerous, and pushed them into the infant vaccine schedule without proper testing. One guy. The other 9,000 doctors? They are all morons. Only Wakefield is right.
Their proof of this? There isn't any. Not really. There's anecdotal evidence; my son was perfectly normal - till his 15 month vaccine. My daughter was engaged and happy, until her preschool shots. I don't really have a time I can point to that G wasn't having some sort of gastro problems.
But my question to all of these mothers (and they are mostly mothers, these bloggers) ... how would their story change, if their child contracted whooping cough at 4 months of age, and tragedy struck? I can't even write the words it's too much to bear.
And the dreaded MMR vaccine, which I even had doubts about getting. As a parent, the what if is very, very scary. What if this one decision, changes the course of everything? Because decisions are like that. But luckily, my husband squashed it all and said, he's getting vaccinated. And that was the end of the story.
But the MMR vaccine ... today, after 10 years of research that has essentially ruined Wakefield's study and he gave up his license because his research practices were unethical and manipulated, still parents refuse to vaccinate. And now measles is spreading all over the country, a fact that my doctor pointed out to me and said, "he has to be vaccinated." And whooping cough continues to claim lives of small babies.
But if you do a straight google search, you still find the plethora of parents who refuse to vaccinate, and very little information from DOCTORS about why you should. You can find lots of talking heads spitting dribble about Wakefield and his sham study. Even if he's right, his study was bogus, and their hasn't been a study in the ten years since that's found any other link, even a tenuous one. But I want to hear from doctors. Which is why I asked mine. And he made me feel much better.
You should read this too. And he hits on the point that qualified science writers are needed now more than ever to combat the uninformed who are spreading their point of view without a trace of fact or education.
The whole thing just makes my heart hurt. So much is based on nothing. And yet, when I read that vaccines could have caused EoE ... my heart skipped a beat and I wondered ... could that be? And I asked Lewis. And he went through all the reasons that was ridiculous. But even then, still not completely convinced, I asked the doctor today. And he said what I knew he would say, but yet hearing it from him, made me feel better.
Vaccinate your kids. I mean do you have to get the flu vaccine? I don't. But G got it, and he hasn't yet gotten the flu this winter, whereas last winter, when he was too young for it, he did. Twice. An age thing? Maybe. Or maybe vaccines work.
And honestly it's your own kid you're putting at risk, not mine. Which is why the decision was largely left up to the parents. So suit yourselves. But if theirs an outbreak of rotavirus in your daycare ... the vaccinated kids are not going to be the ones rushed to the hospital.
I don't know how much I've put here ... while we were on vacation we got the results of G's second endoscopy. We knew, based on the pictures that we saw that day, that it was in no way cleared up. To my laymans eye, it looked much, much worse, even though he wasn't throwing up. So when the biopsies came back, and the doctor called me on Tuesday (while we were still in Colorado) and said that it was 3 or 4 times worse than it was in November, I was not surprised. Though I still cried. He was very kind to me. He told me, "he will be okay." And for some reason, when he said that, I believed him.
But it didn't stop me from crying.
The new course of action is to try new medication. Stop the old drugs, start the new, and do yet another scope in two months. The doctor was afraid I would fight him on the scope. It seems, most parents, are not inclined to do them repeatedly. Again I go back to my brain and try to understand the way it works. I don't know why ... but I hate the drugs more than I hate the endoscopy. And I would rather do the endoscopy, which seem to bother him none at all, than stay on the drugs. And if doing another endoscopy means I can quit the daily drugs, I'm all about that.
I also hope that all of this means that his appetite improves and he continues to gain more weight. We shall see.
But with all of this, there's been a lot of google searching. Lots of google searching. And it's not a pretty picture the internet paints. Yesterday I found a site that links EoE with autism. And therefore blames EoE (and it's rising victims) on vaccines. Such pleasant people, the anti-vaccine people. I don't want to argue about whether or not vaccines cause anything. I'm not intelligent enough to do that and that would make me as bad as some of the bloggers I found.
My point is this ... these bloggers rally around Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the doctor that said that the MMR vaccine caused autism. Forget that in 2010 he was discredited and his results were not repeateable. Because he falsefied his data, and manipulated his patients - children - to get the results that he wanted. Let's forget all that.
There's just him. One guy. One doctor. And they rally around him like a prophet, and cling to the idea that big pharma knew that their vaccines were dangerous, and pushed them into the infant vaccine schedule without proper testing. One guy. The other 9,000 doctors? They are all morons. Only Wakefield is right.
Their proof of this? There isn't any. Not really. There's anecdotal evidence; my son was perfectly normal - till his 15 month vaccine. My daughter was engaged and happy, until her preschool shots. I don't really have a time I can point to that G wasn't having some sort of gastro problems.
But my question to all of these mothers (and they are mostly mothers, these bloggers) ... how would their story change, if their child contracted whooping cough at 4 months of age, and tragedy struck? I can't even write the words it's too much to bear.
And the dreaded MMR vaccine, which I even had doubts about getting. As a parent, the what if is very, very scary. What if this one decision, changes the course of everything? Because decisions are like that. But luckily, my husband squashed it all and said, he's getting vaccinated. And that was the end of the story.
But the MMR vaccine ... today, after 10 years of research that has essentially ruined Wakefield's study and he gave up his license because his research practices were unethical and manipulated, still parents refuse to vaccinate. And now measles is spreading all over the country, a fact that my doctor pointed out to me and said, "he has to be vaccinated." And whooping cough continues to claim lives of small babies.
But if you do a straight google search, you still find the plethora of parents who refuse to vaccinate, and very little information from DOCTORS about why you should. You can find lots of talking heads spitting dribble about Wakefield and his sham study. Even if he's right, his study was bogus, and their hasn't been a study in the ten years since that's found any other link, even a tenuous one. But I want to hear from doctors. Which is why I asked mine. And he made me feel much better.
You should read this too. And he hits on the point that qualified science writers are needed now more than ever to combat the uninformed who are spreading their point of view without a trace of fact or education.
The whole thing just makes my heart hurt. So much is based on nothing. And yet, when I read that vaccines could have caused EoE ... my heart skipped a beat and I wondered ... could that be? And I asked Lewis. And he went through all the reasons that was ridiculous. But even then, still not completely convinced, I asked the doctor today. And he said what I knew he would say, but yet hearing it from him, made me feel better.
Vaccinate your kids. I mean do you have to get the flu vaccine? I don't. But G got it, and he hasn't yet gotten the flu this winter, whereas last winter, when he was too young for it, he did. Twice. An age thing? Maybe. Or maybe vaccines work.
And honestly it's your own kid you're putting at risk, not mine. Which is why the decision was largely left up to the parents. So suit yourselves. But if theirs an outbreak of rotavirus in your daycare ... the vaccinated kids are not going to be the ones rushed to the hospital.
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