Jump to content
This site uses cookies. Continued use is acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. More Info... ×
  • Welcome to Celiac.com!

    You have found your celiac tribe! Join us and ask questions in our forum, share your story, and connect with others.




  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A1):



    Celiac.com Sponsor (A1-M):


  • Get Celiac.com Updates:
    Where Your Contribution Counts!
    eNewsletter
    Support Us!

Pls Help - Non Typical Symptoms? Mood "disorders"


Maureen73

Recommended Posts

Maureen73 Apprentice

Hi all - I'm hoping you can help me out. I was diagnosed with celiac disease last July. My daughter is 4 and my son is 11 months. I asked my pediatrician if my children should be tested for celiac disease, but he said it was not necessary as they are not showing any GI symptoms. Emma is a bright, outgoing child but has recently has had severe "meltdowns" which include biting, hitting, kicking, and are out of control. I'm a stay at home mom, we discipline our kids, but don't hit, she gets lots of love & attention and my husband and I can't understand what is going on. I know this is the age where kids are testing their limits, but it seems like more than that. Like she can't control herself.

Did anyone's children have behavorial issues and were diagnosed with celiac disease?

I'm thinking I should get her tested. She does not have any of the typical bowel issues but I feel like something is out of sorts.

Thanks for listening. I feel so helpless and just don't know what is wrong and where to turn.

Maureen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Celiac.com Sponsor (A8):
Celiac.com Sponsor (A8):



Celiac.com Sponsor (A8-M):



Guhlia Rising Star

My daughter hasn't shown any celiac symptoms yet, but I can relate this to my own life experiences...

I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder years prior to my celiac diagnosis. I suffered through major depression, severe mood swings, anorexia, and a variety of other scary things and was on and off of many anti-depressants, mood stabalizers, anxiety medications, and sleep aids. After going totally gluten free, my symptoms vanished! At that point I had no gastro problems whatsoever. My only "tell-tale" signs were the big belly and the super skinny body, which without gastro problems would probably have never led to my celiac diagnosis. If you were diagnosed with celiac, I would strongly recommend both of your children getting tested, even if they are symptom free. I'm planning on having my daughter tested. If my pediatrician won't do it, then I'll take her to my family doctor to have the testing done. This is important to me. There are way too many things that could be damaged (including her self-esteem, her grades when she hits school, her stomach, her body) if she has celiac and it's left untreated.

I wish you the best of luck in your journey. Let us know what happens.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Merika Contributor

It could be celiac. It could also be food allergies/sensitivities. My son becomes a completely different child when he ingests a minute amount of soy. He is also sensitive to egg. I was unknowingly celiac while pregnant with him, and I wonder if this is why he is sensitive to these foods (I am too). I've posted the list below from another list I'm on, that lists some indicators of food allergies (not anaphylaxis stuff, just the normal kind).

Hth,

Merika

Generally... you're looking for any of these things:

* red ring around anus

* rashes of any kind

* skin bumps or raised, rough areas

* rough spots behind the ears

* bright red cheeks

* dark rings under the eyes

* glassy eyes

* constipation

* diarrhea

* snarts (constant tiny poop dribbles)

* really frequent peeing for the age they're at

* bad attitudes

* fatigue

* irritability

* head pounding

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Tony'sMom Rookie

I also think you should have your children tested. If the ped won't do it, take them to your GI. They don't have to be having symptoms to have celiac. I've had all my kids tested and am in the process of retesting my daughter due to some issues she's having.

As for the behavioral aspect, it's certainly possible. Age 4 is a difficult age, they want to be independent but still can't do everything themselves. I do know that my son can be impossible if he ingests gluten so I do think there can be a link.

Good luck, I hope you get some answers soon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
kempy99 Apprentice

Oh Maureen, I feel for you! I am going through a very similar instance with my 3 1/2 year old son. Our cases are slightly different in that neither my husband nor I have tested positive (well, we have not been tested at all) for Celiac, but my son has gone through testing and although he did not have the "Celiac" gene, he did have a high positive score for "gluten sensitivity" which the doc termed as "Celiac-like disease". Basically he has to follow the same gluten-free (and casien free - tested positive for dairy intolerance as well) diet in order to stay healthy. He had many of the GI symptoms, and this is what prompted us to do the testing. He's been gluten-free for 4 months and CF for about a month. Heis physical symptoms have all but disappeared and I would consider him very healthy in that respect, however the behavioral issue seemd to have worsen! He is an emotional rollercoaster!!! Happy laughing playing nice with his 5 month old sister and the next he'll breakdown over the tiniest little thing. I'm not sure what to make of it. Is he still getting some hidden gluten or casien or possibly some other food that he's allergic to that does not shoe physical signs, but create behavioral disarray (i.e. soy)? Or is it just a part of being 3 1/2? It does not seemt o be better or worse at any time of the day (I was hoping to make a link between days that he's at daycare or days that he did not get a nap (being over tired)) but to no avail, he's over emotional no matter what the circumstances of his day are. I'm really at a loss as to what to do. My husband and I are hoping that its just a phase and we are going to try to ride it out, but if things don't improve in a couple weeks, we may need to seek some professional help for him. Good luck Maureen. Let us know what you find out about your little girl, and if anyone else has any stories to share that may shed some light on this, please do - and thank you to those who already posted a reply. I learn so much from this board and also get a great deal of comfort in knowing that we're not the only ones out there dealing with this and that it can be overcome.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Merika Contributor

Oops, I forgot to copy these symptoms too of food allergies.

Merika

* night sweats

* cradle cap (which I suppose is a rash of some

kind, but people might not realize it)

* picky about food (for older babies/toddlers)

* change in temperament/demeanor suddenly (ie., sudden separation and

stranger anxiety for the first time overnight)

* frequent spitting up

* mucousy poop

* chronic runny/stuffy nose

* Excessive ear wax

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Guest elysealec

I was diagnosed with celiac disease two years ago. I have three children that I had tested. I had no issues with any of them or so I thought at the time. The only one who came back with positive bloodwork was my then 7 year old daughter who had always been big for her age and had NO digestive, skin, dental issues, etc. My pediatrician thought there must be some error and we decided to retest. At the same time, I read an article by Dr. Ivor Hill out of Baptist Hospital in Wakeforest, NC. It stated learning and behavioral issues may well be the only way celiac disease comes out in a child. I scheduled a biopsy with him and she had significant damage already. She went off gluten and her behavior was markedly improved within a month and a year and a half later, she is a different child. Her pediatrician was dumbfounded and was open to looking at celiac disease with a new eye. Hope this helps.

Vicki

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Celiac.com Sponsor (A8):
Celiac.com Sponsor (A8):



Celiac.com Sponsor (A8-M):



taweavmo3 Enthusiast

Sorry, I'm a little late in replying to this. I would definately get your daughter tested, and even if it comes back negative, give the diet a trial run to see if her mood improves.

My daughter gets extremely emotional if she has a gluten accident, that is the part I dread the most b/c I know we are in for at least two weeks of moodswings. We have also made her casein free too, as she was starting to have major meltdowns again and the only change was her increase in dairy. She had been eating alot of cheese, yogurt and milk lately, so we cut all that out and she improved within a few days.

The moodiness is one of the hardest parts of all this to deal with. It's hard to decipher it is just a phase, they are testing their limits, or if it is indeed a food issue and they really can't help themselves. Emmie seems to tune out and lose all control sometimes, and all forms of discipline that worked with my other kids are lost on her. She gets SO incredibly angry, it doesn't seem normal to me. Even my husband and I have argued about it on occasion, since he isn't here all day and sometimes thinks maybe I'm just too easy on her. But, now with casein cut out, she has improved so much that we now figure it is mostly food issues.

Good luck to you...I hope trying the diet helps her. I know how frustrating the moodiness can be. I hated to cut out casein from Em's diet too, but I was at the point that I would have stood on my head just to keep her from flying off the handle and screaming over absolutely everything!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
aikiducky Apprentice

Tamara, that's interesting what your saying about her getting incredibly angry. I've noticed a difference myself with gluten and casein, gluten makes me more like depressed and irritable, but casein will make me just MAD. I just get this rage that comes from nowhere and even I know I have no reason to be angry about anything but I still feel incredibly angry. It's weird.

Pauliina

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A19):



  • Member Statistics

    • Total Members
      120,503
    • Most Online (within 30 mins)
      7,748

    PBunny39
    Newest Member
    PBunny39
    Joined

  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A20):


  • Forum Statistics

    • Total Topics
      120.2k
    • Total Posts
      1m

  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A22):





  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A21):



  • Upcoming Events

  • Posts

    • powerofpositivethinking
      I haven't been on this forum for a long time, but it was absolutely wonderful during the diagnostic process!  My path for celiac disease diagnosis was the following: -Had normal IgA level, and my only serology positive test was the DGP IgG -Deficiencies in both Vitamins D and K that did not increase at first despite massive supplementation -Diagnosis of fat malabsorption both total and neutral -Diagnosis of severe exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI) -Testing was completed to rule out causes of EPI, and the only one not ruled out was celiac. -Both traditional endoscopy and pill capsule endoscopy yielded negative results for biopsy confirmation, but my GI doctor said that both procedures simply could have missed the damaged spots. -EPI and fat malabsorption resolved after taking Creon for 6 months since my EPI was caused by celiac -23 and Me said I don't have either of the two prominent genes for celiac disease   Remember that you might not have 'textbook' symptoms, but you still may have celiac disease.   Also, I am SO incredibly grateful for this site for all the learning it has allowed me to do. I have a senior dog, and these last few weeks with her were very scary! After two hospital stays, she finally received an IBD diagnosis after having gastroenteritis and pancreatitis. I know that celiac disease is not IBD, however, through reading this site, I learned more about it. I was relieved when I found out she had IBD and not cancer this past Wednesday. I know IBD can be managed thanks to what I've learned here!  So celiac.com, not only did you help me, but you helped my pup too! Thank you ❤️  
    • SuzanneL
      It was tTG IGG that was flagged high. I'm not sure about the other stuff. I'm still eating my normal stuff. 
    • cristiana
      Thank you for your post, @Nedast, and welcome to the forum. It is interesting to read of your experiences. Although I've not had TMJ, from time to time I have had a bit of mild pain in my jaw, sharp stabbing pains and tingling in my face which appears to have been caused by issues with my trigeminal nerve.  I read that sometimes a damaged trigeminal nerve in coeliacs can heal after adopting a gluten free diet.  I try to keep out of cold winds or wear a scarf over my face when it is cold and windy, those conditions tend to be my 'trigger' but I do think that staying clear of gluten has helped.  Also, sleeping with a rolled up towel under my neck is a tip I picked up online, again, that seems to bring benefits. Thank you again for your input - living with this sort of pain can be very hard, so it is good to be able to share advice.
    • Julie Riordan
      I am going to France in two weeks and then to Portugal in May   Thanks for your reply 
    • Nedast
      I made an account just to reply to this topic. My story resembles yours in so many ways that it is truly amazing. I also suddenly became lactose intolerant, went a little under 10 years attributing all my symtoms to different body parts, never thinking it was something systemic until much later. I had the same mental problems - anxiety, depression, fatigue, etc. In fact, the only real difference in our story is that I was never formally diagnosed. When I discovered that my myriad symtoms, that had been continuous and worsening for years, all rapidly subsided upon cessation of consuming gluten, I immediately took it upon myself to cut gluten out of my diet completely. I live in America, and had lost my health insurance within the year prior to my discovery, so I could not get tested, and I will never willingly or knowingly consume gluten again, which I would have to do in order to get tested now that I have insurance again. But that is not the point of this reply. I also had extreme TMJ pain that began within months of getting my wisdom teeth out at - you guessed it - 17 years old. I was in and out of doctors for my various symptoms for about 5 years before I gave up, but during that time I had also kept getting reffered to different kinds of doctors that had their own, different solutions to my TMJ issue, an issue which I only recently discovered was related to my other symptoms. I began with physical therapy, and the physical therapist eventually broke down at me after many months, raising her voice at me and saying that there was nothing she could do for me. After that saga, I saw a plastic surgeon at the request of my GP, who he knew personally. This palstic surgeon began using botox injections to stop my spasming jaw muscles, and he managed to get it covered by my insurace in 2011, which was harder to do back then. This helped the pain tremendously, but did not solve the underlying problem, and I had to get repeat injections every three months. After a couple of years, this began to lose effectiveness, and I needed treatments more often than my insurance would cover. The surgeon did a scan on the joint and saw slight damage to the tissues. He then got approved by insurance to do a small surgery on the massseter (jaw) muscle - making an incision, and then splicing tissue into the muscle to stop the spasming. It worked amazingly, but about three months later it had stopped working. I was on the verge of seeing the top oral surgeon in our city, but instead of operating on me, he referred me to a unique group of dentists who focus on the TMJ and its biomechanical relationship to teeth occlusion (i.e. how the teeth fit together). This is what your dentist did, and what he did to you was boderline if not outright malpractice. There is a dental field that specializes in doing this kind of dental work, and it takes many years of extra schooling (and a lot of money invested into education) to be able to modify teeth occusion in this manner. Just based on the way you describe your dentist doing this, I can tell he was not qualified to do this to you. Dentists who are qualified and engage in this practice take many measurments of your head, mouth, teeth, etc., they take laboratory molds of your teeth, and they then make a complete, life-size model of your skull and teeth to help them guide their work on you. They then have a lab construct, and give you what is called a "bite splint." It looks and feels like a retainer, but its function is entirely different. This is essentially a literal splint for the TMJ that situates on the teeth. The splint is progressively modified once or twice per week, over several months, in order to slowly move the joint to its correct position. The muscles spasm less, stress is taken off the joint, as the joint slowly moves back into its proper position. The pain reduces each month, each week, sometimes even each day you go in for a visit. The joint has to be moved in this manner with the splint BEFORE the modification to the teeth begins. They then add to your tooth structure with small bits of composite, to keep the joint in its proper place after it has been sucessfully repositioned. Subtracting from your teeth, by grinding down bits of your natural tooth structure, is done very conservatively, if they have to do it at all. This process worked for me - after six months, my face, jaw, neck all felt normal, and I had no more pain - a feeling I had not had in a long time. It also made my face look better. I had not realized the true extent that the spasming muscles and the joint derangement had effected the shape of my face. The pain began to return after a few months, but nowhere near where it had been before. This immense reduction in pain lasted for a little over two years. The treatment still ultimately failed, but it is not their fault, and it is still the treatment that has given me the most relief to this day. Later on, I even went about three years with very, very good pain reduction, before the joint severely destabilized again. This field of dentistry is the last line treatment for TMJ issues before oral surgery on the TMJ. There aren't as many denists around who practice this anymore, and the practice is currently shrinking due to dentists opting for less espensive, additional educations in things like professional whitening, which have a broader marketability. Getting this treatment is also very expensive if not covered by insurance (in America at least). My first time was covered by insurance, second time was not, though the dentist took pity on me due to the nature of my case and charged like a quarter of usual pricing. Most cases seen by these dentists are complete successes, and the patient never has to come back again. But occasionally they get a case that is not a success, and I was one of those cases. A little over a year ago, I began seeing the second dentist who keeps my TMJ stable in this manner. The first dentist retired, and then died sadly. A shame too, because he was a truly amazing, knowledgable guy who really wanted to help people. The new dentist began to get suspicious when my joint failed to stay stable after I was finished with the bite splint and his modifications, so he did another scan on me. This is ten years after the first scan (remember, I said the surgeon saw "slight" damage to the tissue on the first scan). This new scan revealed that I now no longer have cartilage in the joint, on both sides - complete degeneration of the soft tissues and some damage to the bone. The dentist sat me down and had a talk with me after these results came in, and said that when he sees damage like this in cases like mine, that the damage to the joint is most likely autoimmune, and that, in his experinece, it is usually autoimmune. He has sent patients with cases like mine to Mayo Clinic. He said he will continue to see me as long as the treatment continues to offer me relief, but also said that I will probably have to see a dentist for this type of treatment for the rest of my life. He is not currently recommending surgery due to my young age and the fact that the treatment he provides manages my symptoms pretty well. I still see this dentist today, and probably will see this kind of dental specialist for the rest of my life, since they have helped with this issue the most. I did not inform him that I am 100% sure that I have celiac disease (due to my complete symptom remission upon gluten cessation). I didn't inform him because I thought it would be inappropriate due to not having a formal diagnosis. I was disappointed, because I had believed I had caught it BEFORE it had done permanent damage to my body. I had never suspected that my TMJ issues may be related to my other symptoms, and that the damage would end up complete and permanent. Luckily, I caught it about 6 months after my other joints started hurting, and they stopped hurting right after I went gluten free, and haven't hurt since. I of course did the necessary research after the results of the second scan, and found out that the TMJ is the most commonly involved joint in autoimmune disease of the intestines, and if mutliple joints are effected, it is usually the first one effected. This makes complete sense, since the TMJ is the most closely related joint to the intestines, and literally controls the opening that allows food passage into your intestines. I am here to tell you, that if anyone says there is no potential relationship between TMJ issues and celiac disease, they are absolutely wrong. Just google TMJ and Celiac disease, and read the scientific articles you find. Research on issues regarding the TMJ is relatively sparse, but you will find the association you're looking for validated.
×
×
  • Create New...