How old were you when you were diagnosed
and what indication was there that lead to being tested?
I
was 5/6 when I was diagnosed. I was
small for my age and I had what the doctors thought were bad allergies. I also ate like my 200lb father and gained no
weight. And thanks to malnutrition, I
had that bloated belly you see on the help feed the world commercials. I did not digest anything so my bowels were a
mess. I coughed a lot, a junky
cough. My mom can tell you more about
all of that since I can only relate what I remember being told. My local pediatrician told my mom to get me
tested since he thought I had CF. This
was after all the good hospitals in Philly told my mom I had allergies. So I was given a sweat test which is the gold
standard for CF. Anything over 60 is
positive for CF and mine was 162! What a
sweat test does is determine how much salt is in your sweat. CFers sweat salt. In the summer I am a horses dream, a salt
lick. This has to do with the CFTR
mutation and the passing of sodium and chloride across the cell channel – too
much science that I only vaguely understand lol. Cff.org has all of the scientific details if
you want to read up on them. Now
luckily, most states have newborn screening which catches almost all new cases
right at birth. Getting ahead of the
game is very important and now parents don’t have to wait until there is
something wrong to begin treating; they can start immediately and have a lot
more hope of a normal life for their CFer.
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