Celiac - And Small...does This Go Together?

[alison h]

my daughter was diagnosed 7months ago. doctors said she would start to grow and gain weight, but it

[chrissy]

my children are on the small side.

[Guest lorlyn]

My 10 year old daughter was on the small side and we have been on the diet about 6 months and latley I have noticed she has gotten taller. I do not know anything about growth hormones so I can not help there. May be its the diet or she is just going thru a growth spurt. Good luck on your decision

[happygirl]

has your daughter had the Celiac panel re-run? I wouldnt' recommend taking further action until you have ruled out an active gluten problem. She might still not have healed, or is getting gluten....

[sarah ruth]

my kids are on the smaller side of average, but they're still pretty young. 'Small' and my increased inability to tolerate gluten is actually what helped me figure this all out. I noticed that of our circle of kiddo friends the ones who were similar sized to our kids ALL had grandparents who had been diagnosed celiac (except mine). That said, none of the parents or kids had been tested..

anyway, 7 months seems like time she'd need just healing from damage to her ability to absorb nourishment. Have you tried going gangbusters on the nutrition front (I use www.westonaprice.org for ideas and direction and would recommend it to any human!) before entertaining your Dr.'s ideas about hormone therapy? My kids do/act/grow markedly different when they are fed nutrient dense foods. A lot of the Weston A. Price and Nourishing Traditions research is actually about how diet affects our bodies abilities to produce hormones and balance our endocrine system. There is a great Traditional Foods forum at mothering.com full of practical applications.

[sarah ruth]

...hit the button too many times..

[sarah ruth]

oops!

[JennyC]

My son was just diagnosed a couple of weeks ago, and he is also small for his age. He was a large baby, but after I quit breastfeeding him at 9 months, his growth rate began to rapidly decrease. Now at 3 1/2 yrs old he only weighs 31 lbs and is 37 in tall. (He's only gained 1 lb since his birthday in August.) I am desperately hoping that he goes through a major growth spurt! He's eating like crazy now, so hopefully it won't be long.

[alison h]

my kids are on the smaller side of average, but they're still pretty young. 'Small' and my increased inability to tolerate gluten is actually what helped me figure this all out. I noticed that of our circle of kiddo friends the ones who were similar sized to our kids ALL had grandparents who had been diagnosed celiac (except mine). That said, none of the parents or kids had been tested..

anyway, 7 months seems like time she'd need just healing from damage to her ability to absorb nourishment. Have you tried going gangbusters on the nutrition front (I use www.westonaprice.org for ideas and direction and would recommend it to any human!) before entertaining your Dr.'s ideas about hormone therapy? My kids do/act/grow markedly different when they are fed nutrient dense foods. A lot of the Weston A. Price and Nourishing Traditions research is actually about how diet affects our bodies abilities to produce hormones and balance our endocrine system. There is a great Traditional Foods forum at mothering.com full of practical applications.

[alison h]

my kids are on the smaller side of average, but they're still pretty young. 'Small' and my increased inability to tolerate gluten is actually what helped me figure this all out. I noticed that of our circle of kiddo friends the ones who were similar sized to our kids ALL had grandparents who had been diagnosed celiac (except mine). That said, none of the parents or kids had been tested..

anyway, 7 months seems like time she'd need just healing from damage to her ability to absorb nourishment. Have you tried going gangbusters on the nutrition front (I use www.westonaprice.org for ideas and direction and would recommend it to any human!) before entertaining your Dr.'s ideas about hormone therapy? My kids do/act/grow markedly different when they are fed nutrient dense foods. A lot of the Weston A. Price and Nourishing Traditions research is actually about how diet affects our bodies abilities to produce hormones and balance our endocrine system. There is a great Traditional Foods forum at mothering.com full of practical applications.

[alison h]

thank you for your tips. I live in portugal, and i am not sure any of these mail order companies deliver to europe.

i will lookat the websites you gave me.

[RiceGuy]

Well, I was very small for my age until my teens, then suddenly I shot up like a weed. Unfortunately, the gluten issue wasn't yet discovered. If it had I'm sure I would have been closer to average height. I actually had a five year period where I remained the exact same weight, and barely grew at all. Yet I always ate way more than others my age/size.

I do have a relative who got the growth hormone therapy (undiagnosed Celiac). It seems to have done nothing more than close the "growth window", permanently stunting her growth. So now she's stuck at the size of a dwarf.

Since you know the true cause of your child's short stature, I don't see any reason to mess things up with hormones. IMHO the body tends to do the right things at the right time given the proper nutrients/opportunity. Plus, seven months just doesn't seem long enough to me. If it were me I'd wait. Especially with malabsorption issues, how would the body grow if it doesn't have the nutrients? The hormones alone aren't going to do it.

How is she feeling on the gluten-free diet? As happygirl mentioned, perhaps there is still some hidden gluten in her diet. Don't overlook skin/hair care products too!

I agree with sarah ruth about the nutrients. I'd start with the common Celiac deficiencies, like magnesium, calcium, vitamin D, vitamin B12, and iron. There may be others but those are the ones I'm aware of.

Hope you get all the answers you need!

[gfp]

Unless I'm missing something why does being small matter?

Great if she starts growing but if not what would it matter...

If its indicating not being 100% gluten-free then its one thing, if there are other complications its masking another but being taller/heavier just to fit into a statistical percentile seems pointless.

[taweavmo3]

Well, we are in a similar situation. My daughter is 5, and she is below the 2nd percentile for height. She is 38 inches tall, she is tiny. She's been gluten free for 2 years, and initially she grew quite well, but things have slowed down. We've had her blood levels checked again, and that was fine.

We are now doing a complete blood workup to check her thyroid, kidney function...the whole nine yards. I should add that she also has urinary reflux, and this may be playing a part in her slow growth. I wish the urologist would just do the surgery to fix it, but that's another topic, lol. Anyway, we are with a new pediatrician who is being very thorough in getting everything checked out. In another six months, if she hasn't had a major growth spurt, we are going to see an endocrinologist to have hormone levels checked, and then he said she'll also get a bone scan. He said if everything comes back okay, we'll just assume she's going to be small.

My brother had growth hormones, and it did actually work for him. His projected height was less than 5'0, but now he's 5'6". But, I truly believe he's an undiagnosed Celiac....he still gets very sick, but refuses to believe that's not normal, lol.

I would give the diet a bit more time before considering growth hormones really. And then get everything else checked out as well. My dd put weight on first, her growth spurt didn't come until months later. Even though she is small now, it's nothing compared to what she would have been if she wasn't dx'd. At age three, she was the size of a 12 month old baby. Good luck to you!

[girlfromclare]

I dont think anyone means being small is a problem other than their concerns that their child might not be growing or gaining weight healthily. My son was two stone four pounds until he was five.... hadnt gained a pound in two and a half years... then out of the blue, after about two months on the gluten-free diet, he gained five pounds.... we were thrilled! We had never worried about him being short or skinny, but we wanted him to be healthy!!

[Ursa Major]

Yesterday I came across an article that talks about vitamin D (which actually isn't a vitamin at all, but a steroid hormone precursor). And in children, a vitamin D deficiency can lead to stunted growth! Here is the link to the article: Open Original Shared Link

So, I suggest for all parents with very short kids, due to celiac disease or otherwise, to have their children's levels of vitamin D checked. It is easy to fix that with cod liver oil. I know, because my levels were very low in the fall of 2005, and are perfect now, thanks to taking cod liver oil every day.

Just getting sunshine and eating foods high in vitamin D isn't enough to bring your levels up to the acceptable range, never mind being optimal, if they're too low.

[sarah ruth]

there is NOTHING wrong with being small! But if our intuitions are telling us something is off with our kids then we should listen. Ursa Major, thank you for your helpful post on my question about my kids, I agree that cod liver oil is a very powerful food - my kids LOVE it in those plain gelatin capsules. My mission lately is to increase the nutrient density of the foods we eat. The Weston A. Price foundation recommends bone broths, soaked grains, animal fats and organs, and fermented foods like saurkraut, kefir and good yogurt for optimum human health. It is such a learning curve from my previous diet of humous and bagels and pasta, but it feels correct. I hate that it's taken watching my kids falter to learn this. Best wishes to us all!

[mouth]

Hi,

I don't know. I am the shortest in my family. I am negative... My daughter is 13 and looks like she is 7. All I know is that she had positive blood work since 4 and negative biopsies until 12- when she did a major weight and height gain. All I know is that since she began the diet, that growth/height spurt seems to have slowed down!!!! Visit the GI next month.. The only thing I have noticed is that her chest has spurted a little, and she has put on a belly since the start of this diet.

[bchapa]

I agree, if our kids are meant to be small then great, but if there is a health problem effecting my child

[alison h]

Thank you all for your comments...I have just had the results of my aughter's DNA tests. Doctors suspected she has hypochondroplasia - a rare genetic disorder - a kind of dwarfism. Luckily it came back negative!

So now we will concentrate on this gluten-free diet and hope she will start to grow.

By the way, do any of you know of a good web site where you can find out what common foods are gluten-free...like marshmellows, baked beans, gelatine, etc...

Thank you!

[UNCHeel]

I hate to be the pessimist on hormones but aside from Rice guy's very intelligent and logical comments on the subject, hormones are now popping up in so many areas as being cancer inducers that unless my life depended on it I wouldn't touch them with a 10 ft pole. I'm not an MD but I saw first hand the cancer my Mom suffered and died from and now the med. folks are saying HRT has a hand in it. I would definitely try nutrition first.