When To Challenge Or Reintroduce?

[mom-to-claire]

I know most of you will think I'm crazy to even be considering this but I want to know at what point could I reintroduce gluten just to see if my daughter still reacts. I could write a long post but here are the main points. My daughter is 11 months old and didn't start solids until 5 1/2 months. Within 4 meals of only rice cereal (that is not supposed to have gluten, I understand), she was vomiting several times in an hour, became very lethargic and was miserable for several days. Now she was always a sick child (had several undiagnosed infections..in that they never knew what the infection was but she had an elevated white count) and very clingy, born at full term by c-section but failed to thrive in the first 6 months before even starting solids. She was able to eat other foods that had gluten in them without the vomiting reaction but she definitely had a reaction to rice cereal, oatmeal cereal, waffles, baby pasta, and kamut bread. She ate toast, other pasta, cheerios, gerber puffs etc without the serious reaction.

I decided after some research to go gluten free and it did make a big difference in her mood and she is putting on weight. I am still BF but she isn't reacting in anyway and I'm not gluten-free. We had her blood tested but I can't tell you exactly what the tests were (I know people recommend 5 but I have no idea what she had) and they were negative. She had been gluten-free for about 5 days. She is too small to have a biopsy at a regular hospital and we would have to be referred to a special children's hospital. I would suspect it would be negative since she was really getting small amounts of gluten daily for about 3.5 months and now has been gluten free for about 6 weeks.

The pediatric GI we saw (who I didn't really like) thought it was likely she just had an intolerance and not Celiac but said if the diet was helping, keep her on it. She also said it was possible she could grow out of it. I found out recently that my brother was gluten intolerant as a baby and he eats all kinds of gluten now (but I have suggested he get tested just to make sure he isn't asymptomatic and still damaging his villi..he thinks I'm crazy).

If I was going to reintroduce gluten, at what point should I do this? If she is going to outgrow it, could it be in 6 months or 5 years? I understand it could be never and this could be life long even if she doesn't have celiac. I have a 2.5 year old who is not gluten-free but I am thinking life might be a lot easier if we all do it despite that grief I'll get from my husband and son who will not be able to have their favourites.

I said I could write a long post and here it is!! Any feedback would be appreciated. I am very overwhelmed with all of this. I'm a very tired mom (who is of "advanced maternal age") of two little ones and this change in lifestyle is taking a toll on me. On the positive side, I am finally enjoying my daughter. I thought for sure I had PPD because I just was depressed all the time dealing with her grouchiness and neediness and sleeplessness (that part is improving but not great!)

[Guhlia]

I would wait until she's old enough to tell you if she's having any Celiac symptoms. That way you can take her back of off gluten if it's really affecting her negatively. When you do introduce gluten into her system again, take it VERY slowly. She may have a violent reaction even if she's not a Celiac or intolerant if you inundate her system with it.

[Nikki2003]

if you look at the ingredients in one of the rice cereals out there there is barley or something like that in it,So it is not gluten free.

Celina

[tarnalberry]

That is a tough call, but I *do* understand why you would want to do the challenge.

The tricky part is that you need her to be old enough to communicate to you, but young enough that she hasn't hit the adolescent grace period (that some people get) where she'll be mostly asymptomatic. I'd say no later than 5, but realize that you may have to have her on gluten for a long time (half a year) and the changes may be very subtle over that time. (Akin to living with someone who's slowly losing weight and you don't notice really because you're seeing it the whole time, but someone else who were to see the change in one go would find it very noticeable.)

[FeedIndy]

I would wait until she is considered "normal" on the growth chart. Give her a chance to catch up before you give her something that could set her back again. My doctor had recommended age 3 or 4 so we could know for sure before she goes to school. I do preschool here so she'll actually be almost 6 before she starts kindergarten so we will wait a little longer even.