Son Now More Sensitive To Everything

[LoriCF]

Hi,

I have a 7-year-old son who has not been diagnosed as celiac yet, but I'm fairly certain. It's the last in a long line of food intolerances that have caused mood and behavior problems for him since he was very young.

His health has improved immensely since we took him off gluten but it seems he's a) become much, much more sensitive to gluten than before--causing him stomach cramps and very bad diarrhea and become much more intolerant to MORE kinds of foods, like citric acid and tomatoes, that he wasn't sensitive to before.

Is this normal? Is it part of the healing process? Will it ever end? Pretty soon the poor kid will be subsisting on rice and water.

Thanks very much.

Lori

lol I did NOT mean to put a happy face after diarrhea. Not a laughing matter!

[Ursa Major]

Lori, it is very common for other food intolerances to show up after going gluten-free, as well as the gluten reaction being much stronger. The reason is, that now his intestines are healing, and absorbing nutrients again. Before, his body was so overwhelmed by the gluten, that it didn't appear to react to the other things. Now the other intolerances (which were there all along) rear their ugly heads.

Mind you, once he is completely healed, those other intolerances might eventually go away. You might want to take him off all dairy though, that could help a lot. Pretty much all people with celiac disease can't tolerate dairy initially, but some can have it again after a few months.

The stronger reaction to gluten shows that you are doing the right thing, it is obviously a huge problem and needs to be avoided for the rest of his life.

I am very glad that he is doing so much better already. To get him completely well, you really need to be diligent with keeping your son completely gluten-free. That means, that you have to avoid cross-contamination. So, if he eats toast, and people in your house still eat gluten-containing toast, he will need his own toaster, as you can't clean a toaster properly of gluten. The same goes for wooden cutting boards, cooking spoons and scratched non-stick cookware, as well as plastic colanders. You absolutely cannot drain his gluten-free pasta with the same colander you drain gluteny pasta with, you would make him sick.

Also, check all his personal care products for gluten. If it says things like wheat germ oil, barley extract or oat bran, replace it with a gluten-free product. That goes for toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, lip balm, lotion, soap.

To know what you can use or not, check out Nini's newbie survival kit. Here is her website address, and you'll find the links by scrolling down to the bottom. This is extremely helpful, and will save you from having to figure it all out yourself. Open Original Shared Link

[Nantzie]

For the first few months I couldn't tolerate soy at all, which another one of those things that is EVERYWHERE. Margarine, "vegetable" oil (why don't they just SAY it's soy oil if that's the only thing they put in it?), peanut butter. Now I don't have problems with it. Dairy only gives me problems if I've also been glutened, but at first it was a problem. So sometimes it does go away. Just be as strict as humanly possible with gluten free, like Ursula said, or you're just delaying or impeding his healing. If you don't (and I'm saying this as gently as possible) he may as well be eating gluten. The reaction happens at practically a microscopic level, and can happen very quickly. It seems so odd for shampoo or an old toaster to cause such a problem, but it does. It took me weeks to let go of my favorite conditioner because it made my hair look so pretty (I can be such a girl sometimes...), but in the end it just wasn't worth it. I also JUST put my mom's wooden spoon in the goodwill box. It was hard to part with, but it was making me sick.

It's got to be difficult dealing with this when it's not your body giving you signals and you have to sit on the outside of your 7yo and try and interpret.

Just keep coming here for support and questions. It gets easier every day.

Nancy

[LoriCF]

Thanks for the tips; I've still got a lot to learn. I can tell this is going to be a great resource.

And it's nice to know the increased sensitivity isn't uncommon. Poor kid already can't eat so much, though: milk, soy, nuts, legumes, shellfish, strawberries, artificial colors...it goes on and on. I hate to see new sensitivities start!

Another question; is there a lot of gluten lurking in tomato sauce products? Since we took him off gluten, every time he has spaghetti sauce, or pizza sauce, no matter how safe the ingredients seem to be, he has a reaction.

Thanks very much!

Lori