Spleen Guard

Email February 11, 2014

We had an appointment with the liver specialist today.  He is still certain that Patrick has fibrosis in the liver.  He wants to wait on doing a liver biopsy right now as he doesn't want to put his little body under more stress at this time...nor put him under anesthesia again so soon after his last one -- all these tests take a toll on Patrick's body. 

The doctor measured his spleen.  He had two additional doctors come in to feel the enlargement of his spleen.  He highly recommended a spleen guard...one of his many concerns was a fear that Patrick would fall and cause trauma to his spleen to cause bleeding....and he referred us today to begin this process.  After our appointment, we took Patrick to be measured and fitted for the spleen guard; this should be ready in about a week.

He also was concerned about the bowel movements still being loose/diarrhea and has ordered more tests (hemoccult gastric, giardia/cryptosporidium, pancreatic elastase, calprotectin, fat/ Sudan IV).  Upon these results he will consider a colonoscopy and perhaps an endoscopy.  

My friend suggested a glycogen storage disorder, and he said that this does not seem to be the case -- in this instance, the liver cannot break down the glycogen which causes the liver to swell which backs up to the spleen which causes swelling resulting in the low blood counts....his liver has never been enlarged and so he really is ruling this out since this is where it would all start.