Endoscopy/Colonoscopy needed?

[lolabelle]

Hi, I posted a few weeks ago that my daughter who is 4 was just tested for Celiac. Her results were positive but the doctor would like to have an endoscopy and colonoscopy because she has blood in her stool and her SED RATE and Fecal Calprotectin  were elevated. Thinking she may have Crohns or IBD. The scopes make me nervous and hate to put her through anything unnecessary. Has anyone who has been through a similar situation offer any advice? Thanks so much!

[StephanieL]

Being young, it would be best to get a baseline and 100% confirmations on the Celiac diagnosis for many reasons.  I would do the endoscope/colonoscopy. The prep will be difficult and not fun but the procedure itself will be harder for you than her!  I promise you that. It sucks for parents.  My kid was 3.5 for his and he remembers none of it. I remember every minute and he doesn't at all!  He also had a brain MRI last year (he was 7) and it was ugly to get him under, again he remembers none of it thank goodness!  

Hugs.  None of us want to have anything done to our babies needlessly!  Not all parenting is rainbows but no one tells you that before you have these little people!  

[Jenny]

My daughter was five when she was diagnosed through a biopsy.  The week before the prep, I talked up the fact that on the prep day, she could only have lots of sugary things--soda,jello, popsicles.  She helped pick out all of her prep 'goodies' and we rented a couple movies for the big day.  On prep, the entire family fasted to support her (even her three-year-old little sister).  By the way, I couldn't believe how much more time I had when I didn't have to spend time cooking, eating, or cleaning dishes!  Prep and procedure was much easier than I anticipated.

Looking back, I am so thankful her celiac was biospy confirmed.  It is serious disease and requires extreme vigilance for gluten-free diet.  The positive biopsy took any fragment of doubt away.  Good luck!

[southpaw13]

My daughter is 7, and got scoped earlier this year. She only did upper, so there wasn't the same prep. I was more nervous than she was, and she has no bad memories of the procedure. Her celiac bx was positive, and I am very glad that we went ahead and did the scope to give us 100% confidence. In hindsight, I definitely do not consider getting my daughter scoped unnecessary (which I may have wondered about a little bit beforehand).

[Indigosue]

Hi! I, too, debated whether to scope by 6 year-old daughter when her blood work came back indicating Celiac Disease. I talked to the Dr. at length about it and decided to go forward with it for two main reasons: It is a life altering diagnosis and we wanted to be 100% sure that a gluten-free diet was what we had to commit to and we also did want to have a baseline since we were fairly confident she had Celiac. She only had an upper biopsy but it really was an easy procedure. She worried about it but afterwards got over it extremely quickly. Best of luck to you.