8 Month Old

[ksamom]

I think my 8 month old daughter might have a gluten intolerance. I am going to see the pediatrician on Sunday, and I will ask for a referral to see a specialist, but I'm not so sure I'll even be able to get any tests or diagnosis where I live. I live in Saudi Arabia.

I keep reading that in order to properly diagnose celiac disease, you have to have gluten in your diet. Well, every time I give my daughter anything with gluten she gets the worst diaper rash ever and poos so many times a day. I suspected she had a wheat allergy when she was about 5 1/2 months old because we let her eat bread (chew on bread) and she got diarrhea and a horrible diaper rash that even bled. I recently decided to try wheat again, and today I gave her barley cereal. So, now the very loose stools are back and the diaper rash. How can I keep giving her gluten if she gets a diaper rash? It's horrible to see her cry every time I change her diaper and she's also been so fussy the past few days since I gave her gluten again.

Is she too young to diagnose? Also, I keep reading that celiac disease is genetic. So, is there a 50/50 chance to pass it on? Actually, after reading about all the symptoms in adults, I think my mom might have it and not know it.

[mommy2jandm]

Hi,

I have a similar story. My little guy was very colicky, terrible diaper rash (raw blistered looking). I cut out gluten, dairy, and soy, and all the symptoms disappeared. They asked me to reintroduce it after a few months. And all the symptoms came back. So of course I stopped, so now he can't be tested for antibodies or bowel damage via a scope because he is not being exposed, but I don't mind. They can do the expensive genetic testing (but there are lots of false positives-like 20-30 percent of people test positive)...

The other thing is they tested my little girl who was eating gluten and having chronic diahrea and slow growth for the IGA antibodies associated with celiac, and she was negative. However, I am totally IGA deficent, and it is genetic and it is associated with celiac disease. So I started her on a gluten free diet and she is having normal poops Within a few days!

Hope that everything works out well for you! I have found that common sense is sometimes the best medicine, unfortunately alot of the specialists we have worked with seem to lack this key. If it hurts to touch, don't touch it! And if it is not broken, don't fix it! Cheers and Merry Gluten/dairy/and soy free Christmas!

[MacieMay]

I have a similar story too. My daughter is 22 months now. She had the EXACT same symptoms going on when she was that age. I finally put it together when she went on whole milk and things got 100 times worse. She was lactose intolerant too.

We did ALL testing (allergy, endoscopy, Celiac panel, and Gene) everything was negative. It is real hard to diagnose them when they are so young.

My suggestion to you is go with your gut. If you can't get the testing or if it comes back negative, keep her off the gluten anyway. You can always re-introduce it when she a little older and her immune system is more mature.

We were on and off gluten ALL summer trying to get her a diagnosis and things got really bad. She started to have a systemic reaction. She developed these rashes up and down her arms and legs and then she developed a rare auto-immune disease, which I believe was triggered by her in-ability to process gluten.

We have been gluten-free since the beginning of sept and she improving dramatically.

I hope this helps. I had a really hard time getting Dr's to take notice that something was wrong. Despite ALL the negative tests, her symptoms improved on the gluten-free diet. I finally, convinced her GI Dr. to diagnose her with a gluten-intolerance but this was only after she was diagnosed with her other auto-immune disease. I think that a gluten-intolerance, is a real thing but hard to prove and can wreak havoc on the immune system and be as harmful to the body as Celiac disease. It really needs to be researched more. I hope you find the answers you are looking for. Good luck!!