Saturday, November 6, 2010

The merits of urgent care

Michael has had another rough week. He's been constipated since last Friday which is a big bummer since he was doing so well up until that point. And I'm still not sure as to the cause of it. But we have been trying to relieve it all week.

Finally, Thursday, I called his ped's office and left a message for the nurse. I asked that they please not call back from 1-2 since I would be in a meeting and, of course, that's when they called. The nurse on the voicemail didn't offer up anything that we hadn't already been doing except glycerin suppositories.

So that night we tried those... fail. So I called the night nurse and she talked to the Dr. on call and told us to give him a 1/2 cap of Miralax in 4 oz of milk 2 times the next day (Friday). I laughed since the only time he'll take 4oz of milk from a bottle (in a single feeding) is during a growth spurt. And they wanted him to get seen by his dr. the next day.

So we tried the Miralax at daycare. They got him to take 6 oz all day which is pretty typical but the constipation persisted.

Meanwhile, I called the ped for an appointment. The ironic thing is that he was scheduled for his well visit that day anyhow but they called the other week and rescheduled it and led me to believe that the dr was taking the day off or something. So I was surprised when I call to get in and not only was my dr. there but he had openings! WTF?! Turns they over booked the afternoon and we got bumped which ticks me off since it's so hard for us to get in there in the first place and he tends to react to his immunizations and we are due for his second round of the flu shot now and I was so happy that we'd gotten a Friday afternoon appointment.

Anyhow, the only appointment times they had left were going to be very hard for us to make so we decided that I would take him to urgent care after work instead.

This is only the second time I have been to the urgent care here, but both times I have been in and out in less than 30 minutes. They have been really good experiences. I like the dr that works there. And the copay is only $10 more than a normal office visit and I when I have to miss time off work it costs me a lot more than $10, so it's kinda a no brainer. I know when flu season kicks in that I should probably steer clear, but so far so good. Really, it seems like urgent care beats his regular clinic when the wait time is low.

Now to counter that, when I was in college I went to urgent care one time when I was feeling really crummy. I was feeling completely out of control and tired and had weird bruises on my tongue and I could barely think straight. The (idiot) dr. there spent 2 minutes with me and diagnosed me with fibromyalgia. Fibro-fucking-myalgia! I was 20 and in the best shape of my life and running several miles everyday and had just started dating DH. Life was great and she diagnosed me with that crap. I had enough mental clarity to tell her she was nuts and completely off and I wasn't even sure that I really believe in fibro. If I'd had a little more mental clarity I would have threatened to take her medical license if she dared to write that on my chart (you do not want to have that diagnosis on your medical history, insurance companies will not touch you). I basically marched out of there. The next day I went to student health. That guy wasn't much better... he diagnosed me as depressed and offered me Zoloft after 5 minutes of talking to me and I told him he was nuts. He had to call me back an hour later with his tail between his legs because it turns out it was MONO. Idiots. Of course it was mono! If I hadn't been so incredibly tired I could have figured that out. I had been running a crazy high fever, my tonsils were swollen, the weird tongue bruises, I was becoming jaundiced and my spleen was about to burst out of my abdomen and I was CRAZY TIRED--how could they have missed it?! After they figured it out, it was so bad they were going to hospitalize me until my mom (a nurse) came and got me and promised to take care of me. But I was a healthy 20 year old college student and if it ain't an STD or pregnancy, well then it's probably mono. (And yes, DH totally gave me mono, which he still denies).

So what I learned from that is that it is all about the doctor. Bad drs. are everywhere and you have to be on alert for them and do your homework. If I didn't know a little about fibro and believed that first moron it could have taken me years to realize that she had wrongly diagnosed me since I kinda got a chronic fatigue from the mono (which, interestingly, metformin cured). If I would have listened to the gyn I went to when we were ready to TTC, I probably wouldn't have a baby right now. If I would have listened to my first OB I never would have found out that I have MTHFR (and I probably wouldn't have had such an awesome birthing experience either). I did listen to a surgeon when my gut instinct told me not to one time and hung on to a POS gallbladder for a year longer than I needed to. I've got a small handful of drs that I pretty much trust now but I had to visit a lot of not so great drs to find those few and just because I 'trust' them I don't emphatically trust them. So I like this urgent care so far but I don't assume that I will always get good care from them.

Back to Michael. The Dr. told use to keep up with the suppositories... up to 4 per day (which is way over the product guidelines) and skip the Miralax. And the Dr. loaded me up on gloves which was nice of him. And Michael apparently has strep throat too, so he's on antibiotics again. Which means the thrush will probably flare back up again now.

We had good luck with the suppository later last night. I think the Miralax did help out and make things easier. We're still working on it, but things are moving a little again so hopefully he'll be over this soon. Ditto the strep.


missing_one said...

*hugs* It's always something, isn't it?

So once he is back to 'regular' you might want to consider trying fish oil. They make it for babies, it's pure (I like Nordic Naturals) and you can put it in milk or food. If you give it to him in the evening (dinner or night bottle) he should have a BM the next morning sometime. I have had my 5.5 year old on it since he was young as well and it works wonders (also is great for the Omega 3s for brain development)

Michelle said...

You guys need a break from doctors! I hope things balance out for him. K had issues till he was potty trained. And then again for a few months when he was 3...It really sucks.
We just recently got urgent care centers here and I haven't tried them yet. Up till like a year ago, all we had after hours was ER.

Kate said...

Hope the poop thing gets back to normal soon. Our doctors told us to try giving her more water, as well as prunes. The prunes seem to do the trick (at least I hope they will as K's currently constipated too).

Amanda said...

Several days of prunes did not do the trick. But after 3 suppositories, 2 doses of miralax, and then another suppository, relief! You'd think I was feeding this kid logs of velveeta.

Celia said...

LOL logs of velveeta. Peter gets backed up too. it does not make for a happy baby.

Jessica White said...

We go the prune works. I just have to monitor and cut back or add them in according to what's going on with her.

It sucks when they don't feel well from constipation...heck it sucks when I don't feel well from it.