swallow study results

Well today Mighty Max and I headed to Seattle for a swallow study. I was really looking forward to it and expecting fairly good results. He has made such wonderful progress in the feeding department, and I wanted to know exactly what was safe for his current swallowing ability.

I even joked with the therapist beforehand that I had a report written out in my head on what the results would be. Well unfortunately, I had to rip up that report afterwards.

When it comes to thinner liquids, he silent aspirates. What does that mean? That means his swallow is still uncoordinated, he isn't protecting his airway, and the liquids are going into his lungs. Not a good thing. Not only can that cause pneumonia but it also causes long term lung damage. Max definitely doesn't need either.

As far as pureed foods, he is doing fairly well. However, the therapist was concerned about anything too hard because his chewing is definitely not what it should be. But my gosh, he is loving lil' cookies and crackers these days! He even signed for them on the way to Children's...over and over and over again!

Because of his weak chew and uncoordinated swallow, he is at high risk for choking.

Sooooo....not what I expected, but it's better to know his true ability and not risk his health. I talked with his pulmonary team about it today and we are talking again next week about the course of action. One suggestion is to add in more feeding therapy. I know we need to, but I seriously don't know when we could fit it into his schedule! We are also looking into adding another speech therapist (with a different technique) because of his slow verbal progress. The two issues are somewhat related in that he has low muscle tone and lack of sensation in his mouth. We'll see.

Oh and yes, I got the infamous "angry finger" (times 100!!!) several times during the study. He was not happy about all the barium tests and really wanted to get back to his walker!