3 Yr Old Vomiting

[RebeccaLynn]

I suspect my 3 year old daughter has gluten intolerance. I discovered my GI 5 months ago, and have been eliminating gluten in my diet - our family is also severely lactose intolerant and we never eat dairy. This last month however, she has been complaining of stomach aches every time she poops - though she does not have diarrhea, weight loss, or look sick. Her BM's are solid and normal. I have been cutting out the gluten in her diet, like wheat bread in her lunches, and switching her to my gluten-free bread. Worried, we took her to the doc for a blood test, which came back negative (I expected this), and he gave no further advice on what to do.

The other night, I fed her organic chicken nuggets, which were breaded, and didn't think too much of it, but she ended up vomiting it all up 6 hours later. She only threw up once, so I figured it wasn't the flu. Then two days later, we went to Grandma's and she ate some smarties and candy that they gave her, plus 2 juice boxes (I never give her this much junk!). I am pretty sure they weren't gluten free, and she ended up with a HUGE distended stomach and vomited a startling amount an hour later. She did not have a fever, sweats or chills like with the flu, and a 30 minutes after she threw up, she was her happy, bubbly self again.

What is going on? Is it possible for her to react to gluten with vomiting? Has this happened to anyone else? I am not sure what my next step is to help my little girl. PLEASE HELP!

[eatmeat4good]

Yes, it is quite possible to react with vomiting. My sister did a gluten free experiment with her children. She didn't think she saw any results on adding gluten back. But one child vomited immediately after eating a gluten filled meal. Hmm suspicious. They call it the 24 hour bug at their house...but it happens so often that I think it is gluten intolerance. You are right to be suspicious. You could eliminate it entirely and see if she improves. You can always do a challenge later if you want to, but it sounds like she would benefit from being gluten free. I'm still working on my sister.

[mommida]

Yes it is possible for Celiacs to vomit. Children seem to vomit more than adults with Celiac. (It may be one of the reasons they thought children "outgrew" Celiac because they were no longer vomitting right after eating gluten.)