Hailey’s Story

Blog;

Hailey’s Story

Day to Day

Dermatographia, Reactive Airway Disease &

Psychogenic Esophageal Reflux

Dermatographia

Literally means “to write on skin” and that’s pretty much it. If she is scratched or rubbed hard she will break out in a rash or hives where she is scratched or rubbed. It even caused hives from her dance recital costume. If she takes a hard fall or scrapes her knee, it’s just one more thing we have to worry about.

Reactive Airway Disease (RAD)

More commonly referred to as Asthma (it’s technically different than asthma, but in general they are the same). RAD was the culprit of several bouts of  pneumonia it has been determined at this point. Hailey now carries a rescue inhaler and starts inhaled steroids every time she gets a cold or a runny nose, or for a variety of other reasons. The inhaled steroids have helped dramatically, she hasn’t had croup or pneumonia since we’ve had them. 

Psychogenic Esophageal Reflux

This is different the Eosinophilic Esophagitis and GERD—both require the presence of eosinophils in the esophagus, which Hailey doesn’t have based on biopsies from both 2004 and 2006. When Hailey had a pH probe done in September 2006 they found some very odd results, she was refluxing horribly, but only while she was both awake and upright (with one exception). Her GI doc says that “psychogenic” is a misnomer because it implies that she is psychologically causing the reflux, which is not the case—what it really means in her case is that she must be awake for it to happen and some other mechanism (coughing, wheezing, straining, jumping, etc.) is responsible for the reflux. She is now on Prevacid to help slow down the acid production and Erythromycin to help her stomach empty more quickly in order to cut back on the amount of pain she has—it seems to be helping.

 

 

Hailey was even “allergic “ to her dance recital costume.

Hailey also has three other conditions that are more common and not as serious or dangerous;