Tuesday, January 5, 2010

All's clear

Yesterday was more of the same. Annika was throwing up her medicine and her bottles and we were getting pretty concerned about dehydration. Jim was home with Annie and I went to work. In the afternoon, we finally decided to check in with her doctor again. They said that if we wanted a follow-up visit, we could bring her right in - Jim called around 4:00 and they said they could see her at 4:45. Awesome.

At the doctor's office, they confirmed that she was dehydrated but not seriously so. They told us to stop with the antibiotic, and they gave her an injection instead. Apparently, the injection has enough antibiotic in it that we don't have to give her anything else. They had her hang around for 20 minutes afterward, just to make sure she didn't have an allergic reaction. But it was fine and then Jim brought her home. She then took a couple of small bottles. The doctor sent Jim home with some Pedialyte, but Annie hates the taste (it's sort of an apple taste, but sweeter than apple juice). We've just been giving her watered-down formula and she is actually taking it without us forcing it on her.

Last night, Annie only woke up once during the night, which sure beats the waking every 2 hours that she was doing the night before. She has a lot more energy this morning, and has taken 2 small bottles (5 ounces and 4.5 ounces). She is taking a nap at the moment. I'm going to try to get her back to her regular schedule today, so that hopefully she'll sleep through the night tonight. I'm taking a sick day today to stay with Annie to make sure that she continues to progress.

What an ordeal. I really, really hope that this is not how it's going to be every time she has to take an antibiotic. I don't think the doctor's office can always just give her an injection like they did yesterday.

And to answer a question from a prior post, I figured out one of the reasons why the doctor prescribed amoxicillin first. It costs $13, total. This is because it's a pretty old medicine and is not under patent any more. Azithromycin is owned by Pfizer and costs $84.99. And I imagine the shot they gave her yesterday costs even more. I'm very lucky to have insurance, because it doesn't make a difference. We paid $10 for the amoxicillin and $10 for the azithromycin. I think amoxicillin is also supposed to be pretty easy on most people's systems ... it's not as strong as the azithromycin. So for a baby, it would make sense to try the amoxicillin first. I'm not sure what we'll do next time though.

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