Posted on: Sat, Mar 28 2009 7:17 AM
Posted by: amiesuth
Posts: 1
My 26 month old son with SB (L1-S3, L4/5 function) has a strong gag reflex. He can eat some stage 2 foods, but mostly tolerates yogurt and his fave, chocolate pudding. We have to fatten him up for back surgery, so there's enough skin to work with. When he was born they closed him up, but didn't have enough muscle to work with, so his spinal cord is directly under the skin, it bulges out and causes him some discomfort if touched and when his legs are pulled up during diaper changes. His neurosurgeon said that without muscle under there, that one day blood flow could stop to that area and create a wound, which would be terrible. I know giving in to him and letting him only have smooth and sweet foods will probably make him not open to other foods, but we can't seem to get ahead either, as he usually vomits on anything else. I'm just at a loss of what to do to get him to eat. Often I'm giving him Swiss Miss triple chocolate pudding with olive oil mixed in just to get in the extra calories to gain weight. He's also still on the bottle 9-24 mo. formula and won't take a sippy
cup, the flow is too fast, and also I'm sure he's attached to the
bottle. His OT says he has low muscle tone in his face, but we're also curious if the Chiari II is causing some of this.
