Frequent Bowel Movements

[katerimom]

Hello,

Although I don't post often, I do read posts from others and have learned a lot from this forum. I have a 3 1/2 year old daughter who was diagnosed via blood tests and biopsy when she was 14 months old. After ten days on the gluten-free diet, she was a different baby. Since she has been great, rarely complains about tummy aches, and is happy most of the time.

My one concern is that she still has very frequent bowel movements, somtimes up to four times a day. Sometimes they are runny, sometimes, not. She hardly ever complains about having a tummy ache before a bowel movement. We do have some gluten in the house for our other children. We try very hard not to contaminate, however I'm sure it has happened. I only know FOR SURE of two times that she got glutened. One time she had a very runny stool, the other, no noticeable signs. It really baffled me when she took a HUGE bite out of a cookie that she didn't suffer any consequences after She is growing, average weight and height for her age.

My question is, is it "normal" for celiacs to have more bowel movements than others without this disease?

Thanks so much for your comments!

Amy

[gfgypsyqueen]

I really don't know what to call normal stools, especially for kids. I think it sometimes relates to what they have eaten...too much constipating foods vs too many fruits type of thing. Sometimes the consipating or diarrhea food is just something that gives that child a problem.

If your child has lots of runny stools, try the bananas and yogurt trick. That usually helps the runny stool problems for us. Probiotics also help get things to settle down in the intestines. They sell infant and toddler versions that you can add to milk or juice too.

Have you kept a food log in a while? Maybe you can figure out what food gives the runny stools. For us, one child gets constipated for days over too much dairy and the other child gets a terrible diarrhea rash reaction from trace amounts of dairy.

Good luck

[dionnek]

I'm not sure about kids, but I know before I went gluten-free I would have 8 plus stools (mostly D) per day. After about 6-7 months on the diet, it went down to 2-3 per day, and it wasn't D anymore. I do notice I go alot more if I eat corn or if I have a glass or regular milk (ice cream/cheese, etc. are ok with me). Maybe you could try limiting dairy for a few weeks and see what happens? There are lots of people here with young kids with celiac, so hopefully some of them will chime in.

[VegasCeliacBuckeye]

Without going into to detail, "YES" it is normal for Celiacs to have more bowel movements. It is completely normal.

[Jason 2540]

Hi , my son has been gluton free for around 5 months now and he is 11 years old and can go to the toilet around 4 or 5 times a day so yeah it’s pretty normal .