Hey, it was good to find your website. This might be a long one.  I am the mother of an 8 year old boy who was born prematurely and developed necrotizing enterocolitis.  He was 10 weeks premature and at 5 days old had gut resection surgery that removed a foot of intestine (distal ilieum, ileocecal valve, to proximal colon).  At 8 months old he weighed 8 lbs and was dying of a liver disorder that nobody could figure out.  His condition got so severe that he could no longer maintain his electrolyte balance, was on constant TPN, was losing developmental milestones, and by all accounts, was dying in the hospital.  I had what would be considered to be the best doctors in the area working with him.  However,  I was becoming more and more disturbed with what the doctors were telling me.  Mainly that he was dying of short gut syndrome and that he had some other live condition for unknown reasons.  He had not been on TPN long enough to have associated cirrohsis. Oh, how I could go on about symptoms.  All mostly unassociated in the opinion of the MDs but I knew that there was something they were missing that would turn things around.  
 
At 8 months old, the doctors started talking about liver transplant.  I lived in the hospital with him and knew what every single lab test was about and the results.  I have a background in pathology and veterinary medicine.  Regardless, it's still hard to call "bullshit" on a pediatric gastroenterologist and his entire medical entrourage. But, the lab tests and the explainations that they gave me just didn't add up to why he should be dying right in the hospital.  He would occassionally be sent home, only to be right back in the next week. No matter how much he ate, he was losing weight constantly and usually refused to eat anything--he either threw up or gagged constantly. His stools were basically greasy water.  He was getting more and more jaundiced and his liver enzymes were sky high.  He was the sickliest, most listless little thing you ever saw. 
 
I finally took him to see a naturopathic physician with the last $70 I had to my name.  I was pulling my hair out.  Caleb's pediatric gastroenterologist got mad at me and quit.  Was the best thing that ever happened.  The naturopath finally brought it all together.  He explained how the tight junctions between the gut cells were not functioning and he was passing large molecules through his gut wall.  These large molecules where then basically antigens in his blood stream and along with the produced antibody, had to be broken down in the liver.  His liver was detoxifying so much material and producing so much oxidative damage which couldn't possibly be countered by the amount of antioxidants present, thus he basically had a non-specific chirrohsis that was bad enough to do him in.  He told me that no matter how many liver transplants he had, the faulty gut would always sabbotage the liver.  This explained so much!  He also altered the way his thrush was being treated (another story all together).  I took my son back to the hospital right after the appointment because Caleb's eyes were rolling back in his head and he was violently throwing up. 
 
I did what the ND told me which involved treating the fungal overgrowth brought on by antibiotics used to treat his constant small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, giving him mega doses of L-glutamine to help repair his gut wall, and N-acytl-cystine to help his liver detox.  I had to do this either secritively or in out and out rebellion. In two days he was visibly less jaundiced.  The doctor blew this off as coincidence and continued to press me about liver biopsies and possible transplant.  I held them off while they were threatening to call in the state and declare me unfit.  I was so scared!  I knew that if they did what they wanted to with him, that he would never make it because they just weren't seeing a big enough physilogical picture.  Not to worry though, in a few days all this liver tests had improved.  He started gaining weight.  One day, his little head popped up (he hadn't even been able to hold his head up for months) and he has stayed the happy boy he is now.  We were out of the hospital in 10 days with normal liver test and adequate weight gain leaving all the MDs scratching their collective heads.
 
The story doesn't end there but I will end because he had continued poor health for five years, including another small gut resection.  God, what I know about this now!  If I knew then what I know now, most of this wouldn't have happened.  I have to constantly monitor his small intestinal bacterial overgrowth.  If I put him on antibiotics, I have to be sure to follow up with a beneficial yeast product so that he doesn't get a subsequent yeast overgrowth, which is just as detrimental.  I keep him off wheat because he makes antibodies to it.  I have to constantly guage how excessively permeable his intestines are.  I have to take him to the doctor this week because he is having blood in is urine.  Well, come to find out with some research, that if you can't absorb fats fully, oxalic acids irritate the wall of the colon.  The other by-product of this is that they can end up being filtered out into the kidneys and cause kidney stones.  Auughhhh....why don't the doctors know this stuff!!!  Anyway, we really don't see them anymore.  One happy thing about this story, besides my kid being relatively healthy (it's unbelievable) is that after all the harping I did on the doctors about checking their own research combined with having the naturopath come and talk to them (well, not them, only the residents would take the ND on and listen to his case) is that according to a naturopath I met in Seattle, after this bit with me and my kid, the hospital put an ND on the consult list for difficult cases.  Caleb was a pretty high profile case around the area for quite a while.
 
Phew...sorry for such a long letter.  My kid though, is doing very well.  Looking back through his medical records, the general prognosis was that he wouldn't live. 
 
Thanks for the website.  I'll put out to you also that if you have any questions or are not familiar with some of the things that I mentioned, email be back.  God, I just cringe at the way most of these conditions are handled.  I almost went into medicine after what happened to my kid because I just couldn't bear that kids like Caleb might be dying.  He got GREAT medical care, I don't say that sarcastically, but man, they just can't connect the dots very well.  Precedent is everything and basic physiology gets lost often.  Hope you are well and thank you again.   Brenda