Bump in the Road or Piece of the Puzzle?

Over the last couple of years, Nicky's doctors have been keeping a close eye on his rate of growth.  It's slowed down substantially over the last 3 years.  He's turning 9 in June and his size 7 jeans are still too long on him.  I had hoped that once we resolved some of his digestive issues and he started eating more, he'd start to catch up.  Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case.

Last week we spent the morning at the hospital for a growth hormone stimulation test.  They hooked Nick up to an IV and gave him a medicine that stimulates whatever growth hormone he has in him.  Then they drew blood every half hour for 3 hours.  His pediatric endocrinologist called on Friday with the results and confirmed that he is, indeed, deficient in growth hormone.  Once he has an MRI to make sure there's no abnormalities with his pituitary gland, we'll begin daily HGH injections that will continue until about the age of 15.  The endocrinologist tells me he should grow 3-4 inches in the first year and then 2-3 inches every year after.

I've spent a lot of time on the internet trying to see if there's a correlation between autism and growth hormone deficiency.  I haven't found much.  In fact, there seems to be much more written about autistic children with higher than normal levels of GH.  Our nurse at PATH has told me that there is a subset of children on the spectrum that are diagnosed with growth hormone deficiency.  She feels that this whole discovery could turn out to be a blessing -- that the injections could affect other areas of his development too.  In fact there have recently been studies on the use of HGH as an alternative treatment for autism (on children that aren't diagnosed at GH deficient).  Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be anything conclusive yet.

Regardless of whether or not the injections will provide any benefits beyond making him taller, I'm relieved that PATH doesn't see this latest diagnosis as an obstacle to his course of treatment with them.  We're continuing everything as planned.

Nicky's been on the Diflucan to treat the yeast in his gut for about a week and a half now.  His teachers reported that he had a terrific week at school and that his self-talk (scripting) decreased dramatically.  He's still stimming and scripting quite a bit at home, but Lance and I noticed a big improvement in him today.  Perhaps it's a fluke, perhaps not.  Nicky can be pretty inconsistent, but we're hoping this is a good sign.

This is a video I took today.  He didn't answer everything correctly, but he seemed more engaged in the conversation than last week and he did offer answers to questions that he sometimes has a hard time with (naming his school).