Meet Mariah H, Parent Mentor at Akron Children's
Mariah's Story
My son Braxton was born with a congenital hemangioma and that was the beginning of our Akron Children's specialty journey. When introducing solid foods at 6 months, Braxton had an aversion and was not eating more than 3 pieces of cinnamon toast crunch a day and vomiting when eating anything with the texture of baby food. The next specialty was speech and nutrition around 10 months old. He graduated within a few weeks as he was willing to try new foods and they did not see any oral motor barriers. We followed-up with ENT (he did have a frenulum and tongue tie clipped at 30 days of life) to see what they advised. They pushed us to gastroenterology as they would only have invasive office procedures at this time. We scheduled an appointment with gastroenterology 6 months out. During this process, Braxton had 3 hospitalizations for asthma. First was to PICU, 7200, and then Christmas Eve in the ED they cautiously sent us home with a thorough plan on steps to follow to see if we could get over the hump through the evening (and he did).
At this point Braxton is about 18 months old, he has seen plastics, ENT, speech and nutrition, and planning to see gastroenterology. Once we saw gastroenterology, around 2 yrs old, we completed an upper endoscopy that lead to the diagnosis of eosinophilic esophagitis with visible redness on scope as well as biopsy showing increased eosinophils above 100. With this diagnosis we treated with swallowed Budesonide mixed with 3 packets of Splenda twice daily without food or water for 30 min. We scoped 6 month after treatment began and he was in remission. We did not choose to scope again until 18 months later when Dupixent was approved for his age and we saw a decrease in appetite and some hard swallows. When we scoped, we saw visible signs of irritation (redness) and he was no longer in remission. We started Dupixent for treatment and have been on it about 8 months as of March of 2025.
Mariah is a parent mentor for these conditions: Allergies, Asthma, Atopic Dermatitis, Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EOE), Hemangiomas.
Mariah is a mentor for these care services: Allergy, Ear Nose Throat (ENT), Endocrine, Feeding and Nutrition, Gastroenterology, Genetic Syndromes, Infectious Disease, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Pulmonary
