5 year old with possible celiac

[boswell5711]

My son for the last 2 months has vomited/ and or had diarrhea off and on very randomly. When he vomits it is so out of no where. This last time all his spaghetti dinner was very much present in his vomit. The last time he had diarrhea my husband fed him spaghetti the night before and woke up with loose stools. The first couple of times I chalked it up to a G.I. Bug, but it is happening way too often for that. Also, he tends to get hyper lately or very sensitive to other things. He already has asthma, some eczema, and doesn’t seem to be growing as much and hasn’t gained much weight in a year. Can celiac make a child really sick for a few hours and then be fine but tired the next day? Trying to rack my brain as to why all the vomit and diarrhea. One tired momma here! Came across the celiac post and it was if a lightbulb went off. Any help or if this sounds familiar please let me know. 

[trents]

Welcome to the forum, Boswell5711!

The pattern of symptoms you describe aligns very well with pediatric celiac disease or at least NCGS (Non Celiac Gluten Sensitivity).

Your next step should be to get an antibody test done for celiac disease. It's a blood draw that is then sent to a lab and tested. Make sure you ask for a "full celiac panel" as young children's immune systems often don't respond the same way that adults' do when it come to producing antibodies. For adults, most physicians will order only the tTG-IGA antibody test but for children a full panel should be done. And make sure you don't start to withdraw wheat from his diet until all testing is done or you will likely invalidate the test results. Here is a primer for understanding celiac disease antibody testing: https://celiac.org/about-celiac-disease/screening-and-diagnosis/screening/

After the antibody testing is done and if it produces positives, the physician may want to schedule an endoscopy with biopsy of the small bowel lining - the gold standard of celiac disease diagnosis.

[Scott Adams]

I agree, and for young people this test should always be included: Deamidated gliadin peptide (DGP IgA and IgG)