B. - Failure to thrive

[Guest guest]

,

Thanks so much for your post earlier - You answered many

questions that have been eating at me for about

two years now. I know now that my son, five years old, is going to

be alright; we have pretty much beaten the autism thing, but, I worry

daily about his size (or lack there of!).

Hunter is five and 1/2 and he just hit 35 pounds. He weighed 7lb

14 oz at birth and was taken a little over 2 weeks early (because of

his size). He was in the 50 to 80 percentile on the growth chart

until about 5 months of age and his growth went down hill from

there. He didn't really stop growing though until between 12 and 22

months of age.

We have been seeing a pediatric endocrinologist every three

months for the past 16 months. At first every one just said it was

genetics because I am only 5 feet tall and my husband is only 5'7 " .

However my husband and I both come from average to tall families, we

do however each have a short grandparent. Anyway, the

endocrinologist chalked it up to genetics until he did the xray or

Hunter's hand and it showed that he was 2 years behind, the doc

became concerned at this point and said that if by June 2000 he

wasn't satisfied with Hunter's growth then we would do the extensive

testing and proceed with hormones.

I did not keep the appointment in June because 1) I was really

afraid, Hunter is doing so well and I am afraid to do anything that

might interfere with his recovery in any way and 2)we were doing

mercury chelation and I didn't know how that might go along with

growth hormones and 3) I admit, I don't even want to think about an

injectio every night along with everything else we are doing. So I

assume you are chelating along with the growth hormones with no

problem. I can't see what the problem would be but you never know.

And, does your son tolerate the injections well? Dr. Cave commented

on Hunter's size the first time she ever saw him but she thought that

his growth problems were due to the fact that 3/4 of his amino acids

were low. Were your son's amino acids low also?

Hunter is still wearing 2T and 3T, we are really excited because

this year he is wearing 4T. But clothes from GAP, Old Navy etc.. he

can still wear 24months to 36 months. He is the size of an average

three year old (some are bigger!). He is skin over bones but lots of

muscle, very lean. I know that with Hunter it is not the GFCF diet

because he has been strictly GFCF since he was about 30 months old

and he still isn't growing. I've heard that they think our children

may grow though when we pull all of the mercury out.

Sorry this is so long, I am just so glad to hear from someone

sortof in my situation with good results and a way to get help

financially too! If I could just get Hunter to grow a little I would

be able to finally have a little peace and not worry over him.

You would not know Hunter had ever had a dx today, we made it past

that but I don't want him to face the problems of being 5feet tall or

so either.

Thanks