What Symptoms Did Your Little One Have?

[stomica]

I was just curious as to what symptoms your little ones had...my 2 1/2 year old has had loose stools with mucous and infrequent, trace amounts of blood for about a year now. She's pale with dark cirlces. She was dx with a milk allergy, followed by IBD, but I'm seriously questioning the dx. Anyway, her blood tests came back (+) for IgG and IgA antibodies for gluten, though the other two blood tests were negative. Just wondering what other parents of 2 year olds have experienced! Any thoughts would be great!

Sue

[kaylee]

Hi Sue,

my son isn't two yet but thought I'd pass along our experience nonetheless!

His symptoms were not the classic diarrhea and tiredness, but several of the other main ones in children. The most obvious one was virtually constant bad mood with bouts of screaming (very distressing to say the least). He had a chronically distended belly, even after going with very little food when ill. He was pale all along, but had become deathly so just prior to going gluten free, and also had the dark under eye circles you mention. In terms of digestion, he had alternating constipation/diarrhea/relatively normal, but was always very gassy and clearly had terrible stomach pains. Sleep has been a MAJOR proble, and has only started to improve since he's been on the diet. Also, he is tiny. Started at the 10th percentile at birth and has barely been clinging on to the third ever since, although his weight is good (my husband and I are both low average but not tiny). There are other smaller things, too, like his really unsightly toenails, all ridged and old-looking, that hardly need cutting because they don't grow (just starting to see a change there after 3 months gluten free!).

The gluten free diet has had an AMAZING effect on all the symptoms, but most spectacular (I always use this same word to describe it because it is the strongest, most apt I can find!) has been the disappearance of irritability and screaming. He is now an almost constantly happy child (bad mood returns for normal, discernible reasons now like being overtired).

What an an incredible thing it has been to see the transformation! I sincerely wish for you a rapid and correct diagnosis that can lead to a similar happy outcome.

Best, Kaylee