Dexter's Diagnosis - Laryngomalacia

The specialist we saw diagnosed Dex with Laryngomalacia. It is pronounced Luh-Ring-Oh-Muh-Lay-Shuh. If you have a hard time remembering it just think of the French (la) discussing Ringo Starr (ryngo) in Malaysia (malacia). I'm sure that will help you remember it. Because it's such a simple association. Absolutely everybody makes that connection.

Anyway, in essence it's a birth defect of the voicebox. It is in essence floppy, you see, and thus relaxes into Dexter's airway. There is a surgery to attempt to repair (read trim up quite nicely) the voicebox in this situation, but there is a chance he will outgrow it so we have decided to sit on our hands and let him wonk-wonk-wonk-snort-oink-wheeze-snort-wonk his way into puberty. Actually we have the option to push for it with his doc but we'll wait for now.... Although he says he can arrange for an apnea monitor for me and I am seriously considering it as the nights are wonking long.

Dexter's situation is exaggerated because of his retrognathia/micrognathia situation. This means he has a small recessed chin that forces his tongue to the back of his mouth also blocking his airway. There is no repair for that, although they are working on one and Jay Leno is going to be the guy to run telethons for it.

In other words, Dexter has somehow managed to end up with two completely unrelated ways to suffocate! Go Dexter you stud!

On the bright side, his pediatrician's initial prognosis of paralyzed vocal cords was wrong (don't blame her though - Dexter presents a little different than most Laryngomalacia kids). This is wonderful news as Laryngomalacia is not oft associated with the neuromuscular disorders they were looking at before and saves a loads of testing, etc.

Now we just get to let him wonk away.