Ugg

Wow, what a couple of weeks. Ayden Jane and how her body responds to illness or stress is such a mystery. She had the short lived virus and then as she began to recover we had the blood sugar drop I posted about a little ways back. I wish the story ended there.

I basically noticed trouble maintaining blood sugar through the school day.  Ayden Jane was daily bottoming out, mostly likely due to the amount of energy her body was putting into refueling whatever it is she depletes when ill added to the energy it takes her to concentrate and just do school. Once she was behind and her sugars down she was thrown for the day. We played catch up after school but it was wiping her out something fierce. 

I was called to school the following Monday because Ayden Jane was in the nurses office complaining of a headache and that her brain wasn't working right. I brought the glucose meter with me and she came in at 71! I chatted with Ayden Jane and realized that she was not getting snack when I thought. I was told snack would be about 1:00, before recess. It was actually not happening until after 2:00. She just couldn't wait that long. 

I adjusted snack and, the following day, went to check on her at about 12:40 to make sure she had it on time (she had a substitute). When I got to her she said she had snack but still did not feel good. That's when I realized she was about 1000 degrees. The air conditioner in her classroom was not working and she was simply overheating. I went to the administration and we came up with a plan to cool her down. Finally, nearly 2 weeks after a simple 24 hr virus she could adequately recover.

I kept a very close eye for a few days, maintained her sugars as evenly as I could... and finally this Saturday she had loads of energy!

The frustrating thing is that she puts on so much weight when her body goes through this process. In talking to Dr. M we feel like somehow after and maybe during illness, when her body is stressed she begins to store energy. She stores energy even when she does not have enough energy to adequately function!

We are thinking that there might be an underlying adrenal issue. Not a critical or acute one, but enough of one that after the initial response to illness is mounted the adrenals are depleted.  We are going to try stress dosing AJ with Cortef at the first sign of the next illness and see if we can head this whole awful cycle off at the pass.

Sorry for all the 'science' rambling... I'll try to be more entertaining next time.