18 month old Celiac symptoms, mother is a Celiac…

[Tcaporn]

Looking for some advice please!

My daughter is 18 months and I strongly suspect she is a celiac. I am a Celiac (her mother). The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in regards to she has my allergic skin, very rashy, allergies etc.

Ever since she started solids she has gotten a facial rash that comes and goes as well as hives, very bloated stomach, bouts of very soft smelly stools, and very unsettled at night, not crying but a lot of tossing and turning in discomfort. 

After listening to everyone and keeping her eating gluten I thought stuff it, I’m going to try gluten-free as something wasn’t right. After a week of gluten-free we saw a huge difference. Almost immediately her stools were more formed and the rash/ hives eased. 

She has been exposed to gluten from family members which think I’m limiting her diet for no good reason and I notice a change in her instantly, poor sleep, bloated belly etc.

I will go and get her tested but fellow Celiac people surely see the same correlation that I do? 
 

 

[trents]

Seems obvious to me that your daughter has either celiac disease or NCGS (Non Celiac Gluten Sensitivity). They share many of the same symptoms but NCGS does not damage the villi that line the small bowel. NCGS is 10x more common than celiac disease. But there is no test for NCGS yet. celiac disease must first be ruled out. We can test for celiac disease. But realize that if you have been cutting back on her gluten you may have invalidated the testing. The serum antibody tests look for antibodies given off by the inflammation of the small bowel. If you remove gluten the inflammation subsides. The other thing to realize is that antibody testing of young children often yields atypical results because their immune systems are immature. They should have a full celiac panel run and not just the tTG-IGA. Many doctors will only order the tTG-IgA. Here is a primer: https://celiac.org/about-celiac-disease/screening-and-diagnosis/screening/ But regardless if its NCGS or celiac disease the antidote is the same, eliminating gluten from her diet. So at the end of the day it may not be important to distinguish between celiac disease and NCGS. Some experts believe that NCGS is a precursor to celiac disease.

Your biggest challenge would seem to be getting family members onboard. But you must impress upon them how important it is for them to not circumvent your efforts to keep your child gluten free.

 

[Scott Adams]

Welcome to the forum!

At only 18 months old, I'm not sure how well the blood tests will do to detect celiac disease. Even the link @trents shared mentions that blood tests are for 3 years old and older, but I believe in children this blood test is important to get as the tTG tests don't work as well in children: Deamidated gliadin peptide (DGP IgA and IgG).

[trents]

Agree with Scott.

[Scott Adams]

Also, given that you have celiac disease, and you've already made the connection between your daughter's symptoms and gluten, I am not sure that it would make sense to go through with a full 6-8 week gluten challenge in order to try to confirm a celiac disease diagnosis. If her tests turned out to be negative, would you continue feeding her gluten? As @trents mentioned, she may fall in the non-celiac gluten sensitivity category, which ~10x more people have than celiac disease, but there currently aren't any tests available for this condition, yet the treatment is the same--a gluten-free diet.