EE

We finally have a diagnosis for Emily. She has Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EE). Basically she has a type of white blood cell in her esophagus that is causing it to swell because it isn't supposed to be there. It is usually caused by food allergens, but so far her food allergy tests have come back negative (we have more that are being run). The doctor said it is probably from airborne allergens in her case. She will have to be on medicine for the rest of her life unless they come up with another way to treat it. The doctor said that it is a fairly new autoimmune disorder that they weren't aware of before about 10 years ago and so they are constantly changing the way to treat it. Right now she is on an asthma inhaler that she has to swallow the medicine instead of inhale and a medicine that is normally for acid reflux. Both are supposed to help her esophagus go back to normal size and reduce the eosonophils that are there. She will have to have endoscopy's done every 2-5 years with our doctor leaning more toward 5 years if things are looking good. They also said that it is hereditary so anyone in our family that has difficutly swallowing solid food might want to get tested as well, especially if they also have heartburn along with it. Both Joe and I have both things so we might get tested in the future. We are so happy that so far we don't have to take anything out of her diet, as that was my biggest worry, and we are happy that it is treatable and hopefully her stomach will stop hurting her. She said we should see results in a couple of weeks with all the symptoms going away after about 12 weeks. YAY!