Feeding Felix: overcoming an early onset of Crohn’s disease

Felix At just 3-months-old, Felix’s stool was regularly showing traces of blood. Alarmed, his mother Jessica Hsu quickly brought her young son to see his pediatrician, who referred Felix to be seen by Boston Children’s Hospital pediatric gastroenterologist Athos Bousvaros, MD, MPH. Gastrointestinal bleeding in infants is a fairly common problem, often the result of a change in diet or possibly a food allergy. Because Felix was still in the nursing stage, Bousvaros had Jessica remove some potential allergy triggers from her diet to keep traces of them from eventually ending up in her breast milk, and in turn, in Felix. She spent the next few months avoiding dairy, wheat and soy, but Felix’s condition continued. At 6-months-old, Felix began eating solid foods in addition to nursing, but the blood in his stool remained. To help, Bousvaros placed the young boy on a probiotic, anti-inflammatory medicine, but nothing reduced his symptoms. As time passed, he began refusing solid food—likely due to the fact that digestion was clearly hard on his system—and within a few months he was getting all his nutrition through nursing. The reduced diet took its toll; by the time he was 9-months-old, Felix had almost completely stopped growing and gaining weight. Felix's NG tube Given his patient’s condition, Bousvaros fitted Felix with a nasogastric (NG) tube, which runs from the nose to stomach to feed him a formula providing much needed additional nutriti...
Source: Thrive, Children's Hospital Boston - Category: Pediatrics Authors: Tags: All posts Diseases & conditions Our patients’ stories Bousvaros Inflammatory Bowel Disease Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center our patients' stories Source Type: news