Sunday, July 25, 2010

Why Failure to Thrive?

Oliver was diagnosed (for lack of a better word) as failure to thrive when he was nine months old. One of the common symptoms of EoE in young children is failure to thrive, but why? With celiac, it would have been a result of nutrients not being properly absorbed, but since no nutrient absorption takes place in the esophagus (the part of the digestive tract affected by EoE), this can't be the reason for EoE. Jordan asked this question when he went to the APFED patient education conference in July. While doctors don't know exactly, they suspect it's mainly because the eosinophils cause inflammation in the esophagus which makes eating painful. Thus, EoE kids just don't eat enough to grow properly because eating hurts!

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