Hobbes

Hello,

My name is David P and my wife is Kim L. I am an Ameri-Asian (mother is Caucasian American and father is Vietnamese) and my wife is Vietnamese. We have two boys Calvin and Hobbes (name changed to protect their privacy).

My wife left Vietnam when she was about 15 years old and I left Vietnam when I was 19 years old. When we were young, we lived with our parent in Bien Hoa and Saigon respectively. (I am including my back ground here for anyone who studies in this field to have complete race and region data)

Calvin was born prematurely (7 weeks sooner than the normal due date), but other than that, is a very healthy and active young boy with no medical problem (except weed and dust mite allergy).

Hobbes was born 17 months after Calvin, and after his birth, I noticed the bruises on his thighs and his back. At first, they thought he got the "blue muffin baby" symptom, so they ran all tests, came back all negative; more tests, and no clue of what's going on with Hobbes. Meanwhile, a minor scratch would ooze blood non stop until strong pressure was applied for a good 10 minutes.

Then Hobbes fell and had to have "skull surgery" due to a 2 X 4 blood clot inside his head when he was about 11 months old. With miracle, he pulled through with good news: Since the blood clot formed at the outer membranes of the brain, it did not affect his brain function. At that time, his teeth began to come out, and we began to observe the gum bleeding problem.

Every morning, he woke up with some pool of blood on his pillow; sometimes we were too scary to even look at those pools of blood. This problem went on until he has had all of his teeth came out.

Because one of his back tooth had not formed properly, the hospital decided to put a cap on it; just to be sure, they capped all of his inner teeth (8 total), gave him a platelet transfusion and sent him home with the Amicocaproic medicine. His condition was better for 2 weeks with no bleeding from his gums. The episodes started to come back every time he started to come down with a cold, a sinus problem, or he was just feeling under the weather. It did not help if he had any potatoes chips or carrots, since these cancause gum bleeding.

Brushing his teeth caused more bleeding. His mouth odor could kill flies from the garbage truck. It got worse. He started to have nose bleeding episodes that required us to bring him in for platelet and red blood cells transfusion every month during the cold season. When we complained to his Hematologists of these intensified episodes, their comments were: "Keep his teeth clean, that would help with the gum bleeding."

I got really angry at this commnet because I had seen my child with blood oozing out from his nose like a leaky hose, and the thought that I could lose him any day had made me more destitute. We have told these doctors that

• His dentist, from the children hospital, had given him a clean bill after his 6 month check up
• The dentist gave him the Chlorhexidine Gluconate (oral rinse .12%)
• We brushed his teeth twice or three time daily
• So how could we keep his teeth "more clean" ?

After getting no answer, I've decided to look for other solutions myself (after one of my serious praying session.)

1. First, I noticed that our saliva is more acidic smell than other people, I thought of my child mouth odor and the acidic smell from it, and decide to reduce the acidity from his mouth, and this is my procedure to brush his teeth daily:
   
   1. Brush his teeth with regular fluoride paste; has him rinse clear
   2. Use the crushed antacid powder to brush his teeth; (I use Rolaids)
   3. Have him rinse clear
   4. Brush his gum with Chlorheidine Gluconate
   5. Rinse it desire...
2. Do this twice daily; In between, just brush with antacid powder if blood clot present. That help keep his odor under control, but not the bleeding; Hobbes began to regain his confidence.

Then the miracle started to happen

Last year, around February, Hobbes got a severe cold; He went to his regular doctor; then got sent home: "Nothing to worry about," they said; My sister, who is a doctor; also happened to stop by, looked at him and determined that he also had pneumonia, and prescribed the Zithromax for him; Immediately, he got over the pneumonia; AND -No longer he has the nose and gum bleeding!!! He is now a normal child in every way except for his easy bruising skin; He can eat potatoes chips, candies, ice cream, and jump up and down, shout on the top of his lungs, and is a very happy child; for minor gum bleeding, we use tea bag and apply pressure at the local region.

We've just gave him another dosage of Zithromax last week since he is having the sinus problem and the gum bleeding problem with strong odor; That stopped the problem right in its track; Ask your doctor; This has been a great help for us.

Hope this help