Daughter Is Sick 2nd Time In 2 Weeks

[little d]

Hi Ya'll

This is a question that I am asking all you wonderful mothers on the board. My daughter who is 7 yrs old is deathly scared of needle, the idea of getting a needle stuck in her, Or even telling her the I have had a blood test with a needle totally scares her. I am afraid that she may have onset of celiac disease. She is presenting with all the signs that I went through as a child. Now she has been sick all day with fever of 102, gaging like she is going to vomit, feeling the need to have D but does not. Ok so when she was a baby she was border line failure to thrive always right there at the bottom line for the growth chart. She was always constipated, liquid colace was tried but that stuff is so nasty I wouldn't give it to my worst enemy, and she immediatly spit that out and gaged on the taste, i trashed that fast i didn't care if it cost 15us dollars. I also had constipation (mom made me eat stewed pruns to stimulate me) I would give her enamas to get her to go. As she got older I knew she needed to go poo when her breath stunk and she would get and still does get emotional asking her to put sock of for school would result in a melt down at times. her c would be so hard for her to pass that she would have tears rolling down her face, (me too when I was little). The last two years we have noticed that her poo has been tan in color, with c and with her poos that are on the stringy side like mine can be all tan. She has complained of her tommy hurting and feeling nausiated, this last couple of months. I know what needs to be done testing, she does not like my food and she is so afraid of getting any needles like her daddy. If your child was afraid and still afraid of needles how did you approach you child about what is about to happen. I told her if she still has tommy proplems like me that we will have to do something. So thank you for all you help.

Donna

[Nic]

Hi, I will start off by saying that I have 2 children. Both boys, my six year old has Celiac and my 5 year old does not, but he does have a whole list of other problems that required a lot of testing. Both boys are very afraid of needles as well but sometimes it just can't be avoided. I have always been very matter of fact with them when I explain why this needs to be done. For example, my celiac (also constipation as major symptom), I just explain that the doctors have to find the cause of his discomfort or he will feel like this forever. They always give in (they really have no choice) and then admit later it wasn't as bad as they had thought. If you really want to avoid the blood draw completely you can use Enterolab as they test through stool. The only problem with that is that your insurance probably won't cover it and many doctors won't acknowledge the diagnosis. I used them for my youngest son because he had just gone through a series of blood tests and then as an afterthought, everyone said lets just rule out celiac. I didn't want him to have to go through another blood draw. Also, you could just take away the gluten and see what happens.

Your daughters symptoms sound just like my sons. The constipation was terrible for him. He would be sweating and shaking on the toilet trying to go. He would cry and yell, "why does this have to happen to me". It would break my heart. We took away the gluten but only saw a minor improvement. Just recently we took away dairy, low and behold, no more constipation. I know he has Celiac because I saw the results of the biopsy and the blood test. He has the DQ2 gene as well. But I seriously believe what we were seeing, all that constipation, was really due to the milk and we just happened to stumble upon the Celiac in our quest for a diagnosis. Good luck in finding a diagnosis for your daughter, I can so relate to the constipation troubles.

Nicole

[taweavmo3]

That is a tough one.....but just like Nicole said, sometimes it has to be done. I have a 5 year old who is also extremely afraid of needles and such. We have just recently had to do more tests b/c she is getting sick again. A couple of months ago, we had a whole slew of blood tests. All normal, except she's anemic. Then I had to bring her to the GI doc to do a celiac panel just to make sure she wasn't getting glutened at school.

I really agonized over having these blood tests done, just b/c I knew how scared she would be. But I want to get her healthy, and I knew we had to do it. We had them put numbing cream on her arm, but she started screaming before they even did anything. She gets SO worked up, and it took three of us to hold her down. But you know what??? Right after they finished, she was absolutely FINE!!!! She walked out of there with a smile, holding her sucker. So I worried myself sick for nothing, really. I work in a hospital, and I see kids go through alot more than just a stick for blood.......which probably makes the decision a little easier for me to make, but I know it's still a hard one.

Good luck with what you decide.

[little d]

Thank you ladies for you comments.

Donna