I get lots of questions about what exactly Swallowing Therapy is. It, I have been told, is very new age!! Sloane is on the cutting edge. As is we didn't already know that???
Sloane's level 2 cleft was repaired in March 2011, but she continues to aspirate liquids. We know this because of her her failed swallow study in August. Since seeing Dr. Rahbar after that swallow study, we have started his specialized swallowing therapy. To back track a bit, in Sloane's case, a liquid are considered to be something as thick as yogurt to something as thin as water. At that swallow study, she was unable to eat yogurt with aspirating. Meaning, she showed evidence of aspirating all foods/liquids other than solids. This was shocking because she had been eating yogurt for months with no issues. We discontinued everything except solids from August until November when we started swallowing therapy with a speech pathologist. The good news is that there are no issues with Sloane's mechanical swallow or eating habits. She has perfect timing and all her parts work as they should. The bad news was in spite of that and a closed cleft, she is still aspirating liquids. In years past, SLPs were perplexed on how to help a child like Sloane, but Dr. Rahbar was worked with them on an approach.
Therapy is once a month and we are sent home with homework!! Right up my alley!! lol Our therapist puts Sloane in a high chair, watches her eat and perhaps take a sip of a thickened liquid via a spoon or sippy cup (if Sloane cooperates). That is it folks!! That is what I have been keeping from you. There are no tricks or special devices. It is basically a schedule of how to introduce less thickened liquids to Sloane. Our SLP gives up guidelines, recipes and ideas. At home, I know if Sloane is aspirating if she coughs, gurgles, sounds throaty or gets read around her eyes.
When we started swallowing therapy in November, we re-introducing the yogurt to Sloane, then in December we thinned out the yogurt by adding 2 oz of whole milk to 8 oz of yogurt and gave that to her by spoon, next in January we worked on adding a sippy cup of that thickened liquid to our daily routine, and this month we purchased some Simply Thick and started giving Sloane a variety of thickened liquids. She does ok with using a cup. It is very different for her. She has never had anything in her mouth that expelled liquid. "Some days you feel like a cup and some days you don't." HA We are working on sips of thickened liquid right now. It's a learning experience for us all. The goal is for Sloane to someday consecutively drink milk or even water.
Slow and steady is the motto!!!
Drum roll please.................
Sloane drank 4 oz of thickened half water/half juice for snack today!!!!!! YAHOO!!! Scream it from the roof tops!!! We didn't plug in for water!! She needed some coaxing from one of her best friends in the world, but she did it!!! In our home, this is huge progress. Maybe it won't happen tomorrow, but it will happen again. I know my kid!!! She will take that sippy cup and show it who is boss!!! It has taken almost 1 whole year from surgery to get to this point. 365 days!! That is 1,460 tube feeds!!
Slow and Steady!!!
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