What Happens If Don't Treat Eosinophilic Disorders
Question: What happens if we decide not to start any treatment for the eosinophilic disorder?
Answer: The natural history of untreated eosinophilic disorders is not completely clear. However, a number of complications can occur depending upon the specific medical problem. Below are some examples:
- Allergic Colitis. This disease most commonly presents in early infancy. The children with this disorder have an allergy to milk protein. The severity can go from losing a very small amount of blood in the stools (not able to be seen with the naked eye) to having gross blood in the stool. If you do not treat the mild disorder, maybe (again, maybe) not much will happen, but if you do not treat the more severe forms, then anemia and failure to thrive is likely to occur. Most children outgrow this problem by 3 years of age.
- Eosinophilic esophagitis. It is our feeling that constant inflammation in the esophagus leads to chronic scarring such as strictures. The esophagus gets so inflammed that it becomes narrow and does not let food travel through it normally.
- Eosinophilic gastroenteritis. The severe cases have diarrhea with malabsorption. The patient can stop growing and this is very detrimental for a child.
