Visit to Dr Green's clinic today

[Guest guest]

My wife, ph and I went to see Dr. Green, a gastroenterologist, in

Leicester today. Several people on both lists have expressed an

interest in knowing how this went.

I'll try not to be too negative, but I didn't get a good feeling at all.

Firstly, it was not Dr. Green that we saw, but a member of his team

called Dr Wilmot (I believe that's right, don't have the notes with me

right now).

I don't want to appear too negative about Dr Wilmot, because much of

what she said could be right - she just didn't say what I wanted to

hear. She certainly didn't say anything giving the impression that

they treated autistic children any differently from others. She was

just sceptical about the reasons we have so far for suspecting bowel

inflammation.

She cast doubt on the Genova stool test reference ranges, saying that

the tests she had looked at had much higher tolerances.

She generally said there was little reason to believe that Joe had

inflammation in the bowel, despite the highly elevated calprotectin

and esinophils. She also said that the only reason it was worth

investigating further was the history of chrohn's in the family. She

didn't really even recommend taking the bloods, but said that we were

free to do so if we chose. Which we did.

She also said that " People with autism just have funny bowels " . This

was the only point where I nearly got annoyed. I managed to restrain

myself and just say " yes, and we'd like to find out why, and whether

bowel irritation is causing his funny bowels " .

But basically the message was " he is constipated, so we just treat the

constipation with movicol and come back in 3 months " .

At least the bloods were taken, so we can take it from there.

I was most disappointed that we did not see Dr. Green directly. I

would be very interested if the person who saw Dr Green and gave a

good report of the outcome would email me either privately or on the

list to explain the background to their case, because of course it

might differ substantially from our own, which could explain the

difference in treatment.

I will report back further when the bloods come back. I suspect we

will be falling back to the plan of seeing Dr Balzola, but I'll wait

and see.

--

Simon Godden