Medical surprises

One of the things you do immediately when you get home is take your newly adopted kid or kids to the doctor to get a complete workup. There are adoption specialists that you can use but here in Massachusetts the waiting period for an appointment is crazy so we just went to our normal pediatrician.

When our daughter came home she was eating like a horse and could never seem to get enough to drink so we wanted to get to the bottom of it. What we found was that she had a parasite which was likely starving her for nutrients. One cycle of meds and problem solved – she is eating like a normal toddler again. This also likely explains why she was under-weight in the baby house and had a nasty skin infection (since mostly dealt with).

One thing I did learn is that these parasites are hard to test for (so you need to look multiple times and over multiple days) and that there are two tests run – one for domestic exposure and one for international exposure. A US medical lab won’t do the international test automatically (and many doctors don’t realize they need to order it special) so you need to make sure it is included in the workup.

Given how many people we met in Kazakstan who got sick, it would seem parasites and other baddies are pretty common in the water and food. So watch yourself and your newly adopted kids (and any kids you bring with you).