word 2007

First, this is not an issue with assigning a caption from a picture and the 
caption isn't in a text box. In fact, I've scoured the internet and found no 
known issues like what I'm about to describe.

My document has 16 figures and 12 tables. I created a list of figures and a 
list of tables and found that both go missing randomly when any changes are 
made trying to get them to reappear. E.g., if I'm missing only fig 13, and I 
test a change, several figures then go missing. Or if I have all figures and 
begin to insert tables, the list of figures looses several again. I started 
over with a clean document, created new image files from screen shots in 
Paint in case there were problems with the image files. Nothing works. I 
tested each caption for each figure and table after I inserted each. Then I 
tested the lists after each image file was inserted. The problems only began 
once I inserted a table. The list of figures loses several when I insert a 
table (not the caption, just the table). 

I hope someone has some insight into this. It was due to the writer two days 
ago and I'm about to create a manual list of figures and tables just so he 
can meet his deadline. However, there may be more edits, so that's a terrible 
solution.

many thanks!