Yellow Poop?

[kookaburra]

My 4 year old son had the strangest looking butter yellow poop, sleep apnea, abdominal pain, reflux, brown teeth, chronic sinusitis and past migraines or undiagnosed meningitis. Also sensory integration & behavioral issues that wax & wane with his abdominal symptoms.

We allergy tested, and many things came up as moderate positives (gluten, casein, soy, egg, etc.) so took him off all allergens except gluten first. The mucus decreased significantly, but his poop remained yellow and stomach pain persisted. Also it didn't change his behavior/SI. Three weeks later we took him off gluten. Within days, his distended stomach flattened and his poop turned brown for the first time in three months. His abdominal pain stopped. His behavior improved over the next few weeks. His body shape even changed. The poor little guy never had a behind and suddenly grew (a modest) one. He gained weight in general and just shot up in height, although at the 50th percentile ftt wouldn't describe him.

After being off of gluten for 2+ months he took the IGA blood test for celiac and it came up negative, as I know it would due to lack of exposure. So he took the Prometheus gene test and it came up negative.

We kept him off gluten, and he continued to improve, until I tried RAST tested "pure" oats and his poop turned yellow and behavior plummeted. After five days of no oats, he returned to "normal" again. Six weeks passed, and I tried the pure oats again. Same thing happened. (BTW, his allergy test for oats came up negative).

Any advice? Anyone with a similar story? Anyone with yellow poop (and I mean very very light yellow poop, think the color many new mothers paint their baby's room). I can't bear to make him sick again by putting him back on gluten so I can get a definitive test (especially with two meningitis scares), but with all the cross contamination etc. etc. a lack of diagnosis seems like a risky way to proceed. Especially since the fact that he can't even handle "pure" oats seems to suggest he might be a very sensitive celiac.

Thank you for your replies

[Guhlia]

The protein found in oats is very similar to the gluten protein. Some Celiacs do react to pure oats. I wouldn't see any need in putting him through a dietary challenge. You already know it's bothering him. If he were my child I would just steer clear of oats as well. Actually, my family already does stay away from oats because of the protein similarity. It's just not worth it to risk getting sick.

[Lisa]

Yellow poop is a clear sign for me that gluten has got a hold of me.

[JEM123]

Yellow poop is a clear sign for me that gluten has got a hold of me.

Same here....Clay colored poop = gluten!

[Juliet]

That's exactly how my son's poop looked when he was being exposed a lot. He also had the discolored teeth, reflux, and abdominal pain.

[sarahelizabeth]

Interesting... my son often has yellow poop... varying from very pale to almost flourescent. I never really thought much of it!!

[Izak's Mom]

I can't bear to make him sick again by putting him back on gluten so I can get a definitive test (especially with two meningitis scares), but with all the cross contamination etc. etc. a lack of diagnosis seems like a risky way to proceed. Especially since the fact that he can't even handle "pure" oats seems to suggest he might be a very sensitive celiac.

Thank you for your replies

Do you need the 'definitive test' at this point? It sounds like you already know exactly what his triggers are & his reactions sound pretty definitive! It sounds like you have him on the right diet now - if I were you, I'd just keep up the good work and try not to worry for now about having something 'official' on paper. If he's healthy and growing and gaining weight on the diet you've got him on, that sounds pretty good to me. And you can always wait a couple years to try official testing again, when he's a bit older & his insides have had a chance to mature a bit.

[2boysmama]

It took me a while to figure out that my son's yellow poop was caused by the rice milk he's drinking. Mind you, he had no other symptoms of being glutened, and I felt relatively confident he wasn't. Is that a possibility with you, too?

[Charlieswpa]

Anybody knows how long it takes before it turns to a normal color? I've been gluten free for 8 weeks and no change in color.Also does being gluten cause dark circles under your eyes and do they go away being gluten free?

Thanks

[kookaburra]

For my son it only took five days or so to change from that weird white yellow to a more mustard (more "normal" looking yellow). It will keep changing if he stays off gluten... After a couple of weeks it will go from mustard to brown. I wouldn't say it looks normal even when it gets to brown, it has "ragged edges" which I've been told is malabsorbtion -- I can sometimes see his breakfast exit five hours after consumption...

If he doesn't take his vitamins, he gets dark circles. I'm not sure what it is but you can really see a difference in his energy & behavior. He takes Super Nu thera, lots of xtra calcium, A & D from fish oil source, probiotics, and xtra B-12.

A lot of people are deficient in iron... could that be the dark circles? I've heard of vitamin K deficiency, but don't know what that is...

[kookaburra]

Do you need the 'definitive test' at this point? It sounds like you already know exactly what his triggers are & his reactions sound pretty definitive! It sounds like you have him on the right diet now - if I were you, I'd just keep up the good work and try not to worry for now about having something 'official' on paper. If he's healthy and growing and gaining weight on the diet you've got him on, that sounds pretty good to me. And you can always wait a couple years to try official testing again, when he's a bit older & his insides have had a chance to mature a bit.

I think that's where we settled with it. Your common sense makes sense. It would be so darned helpful, especially with school & in-laws & pediatrician though, if we had that piece of documentation. And how hard it is to be worried about factory cross contamination, shared toasters & utensils, & crumbs (as I've heard reference to) without the "proof." The diet I can do, but the rest, I just feel like & alien from outer space.

[kookaburra]

It took me a while to figure out that my son's yellow poop was caused by the rice milk he's drinking. Mind you, he had no other symptoms of being glutened, and I felt relatively confident he wasn't. Is that a possibility with you, too?

I don't think it could be rice milk... Both times were after purposeful ingestion of RAST tested oats (fairly high quantities). We were both hoping those were ok for him, oat flour is so tasty and he loves oatmeal. By the second exposure, actually, he had pretty much completely changed over to Hemp milk and wasn't drinking any rice milk. (I always picture a mouthful of fabric when I say Hemp milk, but it's tasty).

Also, it's not the color yellow (kind of mustard) that his poop would change after eating something that would affect his poop (like a lot of corn chips say). This is like whitish yellow. Someone called it flourescent yellow. In all my days of third world travel, several ameobas & stuff later, I in my whole entire life have never had a poop that looked like this. He once had a white poop! How incredibly weird. And one very very light gray. Fascinating. (I used to read great books. Now I read poop).

Thank you for your reply.

[Izak's Mom]

I think that's where we settled with it. Your common sense makes sense. It would be so darned helpful, especially with school & in-laws & pediatrician though, if we had that piece of documentation. And how hard it is to be worried about factory cross contamination, shared toasters & utensils, & crumbs (as I've heard reference to) without the "proof." The diet I can do, but the rest, I just feel like & alien from outer space.

I know what you mean. I don't have an 'official' (paper) diagnosis either - although the GI did say that it sounded an awful lot like Celiac. But she also said that if what I was doing diet-wise was working, then to stick with it...so I just tell the 'outside' world he has Celiac and leave it at that. Thankfully his ped. is with me on this one - she's the one who actually suggested eliminating wheat in the first place. As for x-contamination...admittedly, I'm not as fanatic about it as I could be (we have one toaster), but I have switched bath products since at 20 months, drinking bathwater is a given & I've made sure his toothpaste & lotions are safe. Honestly, I vacillate between thinking I really need to be more crazy about it, and then thinking I just don't have it in me, since part of me feels that I am doing 'enough'...but I suppose over the past year it's been an upwards trend of slowly becoming more conscientious about the finer details like crumbs, utensils, etc. I did upgrade vacuums - got a Dyson for x-mas, so that's something. :-)

Re: reading poop....heh heh. I don't think a single day goes by where I haven't looked at, asked about, muttered to myself, or silently wondered about something related to poop. As far as I'm concerned, I'm a card-carrying member of the Poop Patrol. We should form a union or something...More gluten-free products! Better testing! Higher wages for Celiac Moms! Ok, well maybe that last one wouldn't fly...

[Lisa]

I like that idea. Poop Patrol Union (local No. 2)