Additional Nutrition Challenges ?

[wildones]

Does anyone else have a child with major nutritional challenges besides celiac disease ? One of my boys has short gut-he had 75% of his small intestines, his ileocecal valve(very important) and part of his colon removed as a newborn. he also has a biliary tract disorder and possibly a progressive liver disorder too. He has a stent in his common bile duct that is there for a few months in order to try and keep it open (he has 2 areas of stenosis) and for the parts that are very dialated to compress around it. The bile flow is not very good and therefore more difficult for him to digest food. He is uncomfortable every time he eats, has major malabsorption problems with his short gut, and also has celiac disease with all the restrictions it entails.

It is very taxing to try and assure that he is getting adequate nutrition, with all the extra challenges besides 'just' celiac. he is one of my triplets and all three of them have been diagnosed with either celiac disease or gluten intolerance. My husband has gluten intolerance and I have celiac disease, so the whole family is totally gluten free. That helps to have all of us with the same restrictions.

Lorraine

[FreyaUSA]

Are you familiar with the glycemic index/load of foods? Basically, it is a new way of categorizing carbohydrates by how quickly they're able to be digested. It sounds like it would be worth your while to find foods that are "high" on the list for your son to eat but are still nutritional strong. Examples of some of these foods would be millet (it is alkaline based as opposed to all the other grains out there which are acidic...acids being a manner in which to bring down the GI.) Potatoes. Carrots. Watermelon (for fruit.)

It sounds like you have a complicated situation! Good luck

[wildones]

No I am not familiar with that, but will look into it, thanks . My son does love all the foods you mentioned, so that is good news for us.

Lorraine

[FreyaUSA]

Here's a good site for a LONG list of foods that have had the GI/GL tested. Mendosa also does a good job at explaining how the lists work. Again, good luck!

Revised International Table of Glycemic Index (GI) and Glycemic Load (GL) Values