The First Signs of Ari's LCH

Written by Haley Lane

SCABS ON HER HEAD
Ari's first sign of LCH was her scabs on her head. I tried about 8 different things to try to get it to go away. Some things would help it for a little while but overall my efforts did little good. Some of her scabs were the size of pennies. They completely covered her head. They were much worse behind the ears and quite often they would bleed. But overall, I was surprised by how little they bothered her.

EXCESSIVE THIRST FOR WATER
The next sign was her excessive need for water. I noticed this I purchasing a large amount of Powerade that was on sale. The kids found it and pretty much lived on it for 2 or 3 days. We have learned the Powerade didn't start anything, but it could have filled her need for sodium and when she didn't have it she tried to feed her craving with water.
The first night she woke me up for a drink was July 3rd. I didn't think much of it. By the end of the week, she was drinking a quart jar of water at night. I still was of the mind set the more water the better. At least for myself, I feel better when I get more water in a day. I now know, you definitely can have too much of a good thing. She slowly started drinking more and more water.

Then, we started our extensive search for the most absorbent diapers we could find. We ended up trying about 6 different brands. Kirkland and Pampers Ultra Dry were comparable, but the Pampers gave her rash. So the winner was Kirkland. We still spent about $120 in diapers a month, and we were playing a little game I like to call Ring Around The Pee. This is how you play. We were going through about 6-8 diapers a night. Once we would get peed on we would change the diaper and move to another part of the bed. We did this about 4 times a night. Believe me, there is no better feeling then waking up all nice and wet and knowing it is pee. We were a little bit sleep deprived when she got to were she was drinking about 1 1/2 gallons a day.

SYMPTOMS OF DIABETES
My first thought was that she had Diabetes. She had some signs which included: not liking sweets, being very thirsty at night, and a couple others. So we went to Wal-mart and purchased a Ketones test to test her urine. It came back negative. I took her into Dixie Pediatrics on August 4th. The first thing they asked me was, “Is she sick?” I said, “Actually, she is a happy, healthy baby that just drinks a ton and has scabs on her head.”

They looked at her and told me her the scabs on her head were cradle cap. Or cradle crap is what we call it. They told me to just use olive oil at night and comb it out in the morning. Then use head and shoulders and comb it out again. This helped it for a few days. Then it quit working and it actually got worse. Then they told me some times kids will drink a ton of water but we will test her blood to see if it is Diabetes.