This is long, but please hang in there. I need you.

At 2 months old my daughter got a stomach virus. She was vomiting for 24 hours. It passed pretty quickly. No real intervention needed.

About 2 months later, she got ANOTHER stomach virus. This one she vomited a little longer, the vomit started to get green. She wasn’t nursing. She wasn’t peeing. She had uric crystals in her diapers. Took her to the doctor, but eventually just ended up hydrating with Pedialyte by syringe at home.

Two months later, a few weeks ago, she wakes up at 5AM screaming, covered in vomit. AGAIN. This time she’s throwing up nonstop. I can’t keep up with the laundry. Eventually I give up and stop dressing her. She’s refusing to nurse. She’s not wanting Pedialyte. The next day (the day of our flight for vacation, of course), she’s worse. Still vomiting. Lethargic. Minimal pee with uric crystals. Still green vomit. Can’t keep down Pedialyte anymore.

I take her to the pediatrician. She had lost 7% of her body weight. The doctor didn’t like her demeanor. She had us admitted to the hospital to rehydrate and get our blood sugar back up.

She was on fluids for over two days before she started peeing regularly. She started to slowly nurse again. As she rehydrated, new symptoms showed up. They ran labs and got an X-ray and sonogram.

Labs did not show sign of infection or like the body was fighting a tummy bug. Sonogram was normal. X-ray showed bowel loops and some stool in the colon. They said she was likely constipated. We gave her some suppositories, and she pooped.

She started having moments of intense pain. She was completely inconsolable. It went on for 1.5-2 hours. Utterly miserable. Tylenol didn’t help. Gas drops didn’t help. Sent off her poop to the lab, and it came back negative for all common GI viruses and such. The doctor told me he didn’t think this was a tummy virus and it seemed more chronic. He pointed to her growth chart and how it had dipped since these episodes started.

He ordered a stat ultrasound the next time she had pain. They saw no signs of intussusception. She was rushed to a barium enema. The radiologist said he didn’t suspect intussusception either, but that she had fine ulcerations on her intestines and some narrowing in her sigmoid colon. He said it was potential Hirschsprung’s Disease.

We were transferred to a children’s hospital. She seemed to improve a little, having less bouts of pain. She had an upper GI follow through which came back normal. She had a rectal suction biopsy, which ruled out Hirschsprung’s. She was put on Lactulose for constipation and the generic of Pepcid for reflux.

We went home after a week. She seemed okay. She started to nurse normally again. She started gaining weight. She was waking up about an hour after bedtime every night screaming. After about 2-3 rounds of snuggles she would settle and sleep. She seemed to be improving and it seemed like maybe her sleep was just impacted by the hospital stay.

The Lactulose gave her diarrhea several times a day, so I stopped it. She went one day without pooping and woke up in extreme pain. We gave her a suppository and she felt better and slept.

The past three days she has been spitting up quite a bit after she eats in the morning. She’s arching her back in pain when she wakes up screaming. We go and pick her up and she stops crying and even giggles. Her tummy feels kind of bloated when it happens, but not freakishly hard or anything.

I have cut dairy as a last ditch effort. I know that takes time. Her reflux medication likely won’t work for another week or so. We are sitting her up after every meal for 20-30 mins and feeding her an hour before bedtime. Her burps are often wet. Her diapers have a lot of mucus. She is back on Lactulose, but the dose is lower.

Any thoughts? I feel hopeless and exhausted. Looking for any and all experience.