Medical News

So anyone who has hung around Sophie long enough will know that she has an inhalatory stridor or that her voice sort of squeaks when she breaths in on occasion. So the doctor said it was probably a weak area in the trachea but then, after she turned one, they said that was probably not that diagnosis because it usually goes away by age one. So Sophie's Aunt Kira, a speech-language pathologist (go team!) in a hospital asked the Ears, Nose, and Throat Specialist (ENT) what it might be and her friend said that pediatricians are idiots and that it was probably a flaccid (weak) epiglottis (a primarily cartilage, spoon shaped structure that flaps over your trachea to protect it when, say, you swallow). There is an even more intimidating medical term for this that I will not bore you with now. Well, I took her into the ENT here and said I didn't want to do anything invasive if we didn't have to, so we talked and he decided to scope her through her nose (which took like a minute for the whole procedure). He thought it was probably a flaccid epiglottis too but wanted to cover his butt in case there was something else going on in there. So she hated the procedure. I hated the procedure. But it was quick and the outcome...drum roll, please...a flaccid epiglottis! The problem goes away in 98% of kids that have it by age 2. And the other 2% outgrow it a bit later. So Kira's friend gets the grand prize of my thanks and anyone who was ever concerned about it may now put their minds at ease and look for something else in their lives to obsess over. Hooray for Sophie!