Today Jackson had an appointment with a neurologist who specializes in dysautonomia. I thought it was a good appointment and I am hopeful that some of Jackson's more bothersome symptoms (GI pain/retching/vomiting and heat intolerance)can be improved with the right medications.
We met with the fellow first. We had actually met her before during Jackson's nerve conduction test a few months back and she remembered him, both because of his distinctive name and when she saw him wearing his headphones.
We went over a lot of history stuff such as the initial brain injury and the symptoms he has. Then she went to consult with the attending neurologist and they both came back in to let us know the plan.
First, Jackson is going to start on a new medication (florinef) that will increase the volume of blood. Hopefully that will help with the heat intolerance, rapid heart rate, blood pressure, and perhaps even the GI stuff.
In the meantime, he is going to have an MRI of the brain to compare to his old ones. He has not had one since he was inpatient after his brain injury. The purpose of this is to see if the symptoms are central (ie: from the brain injury, in which case the MRI would be about the same as the old ones) or from something else (in which case the MRI may show changes). He is also going to have blood work and urine testing.
Once the results of the MRI are in, we can decide how aggressive we want to treat it. There are a number of options we have, but we are only going to try one thing at a time...if something goes wonky we want to know what is causing it.
Lee stayed home with Zoe, who was not in a very cooperative napping mood. Maybe she'll sleep extra good tonight.
