Skinny 2 Year Old

[ItchyMeredith]

Hello- I wanted to run this by all of you experienced celiac parents to get your advice. I have celiac and I am trying to find out if my LO does too.

Kellen is my oldest. He is 2 1/2 years old. He is really thin and a little short as well. He is 36 inches (25-50th percentile) and 27 pounds (10-20 percentile). His father and I are not small people. I am 5'8" and my DH is 5'11"- neither of us are skinny.

I am a little worried about my little guy. He eats ALL DAY LONG. I am not exaggerating. From the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes to bed he asks for food. I feel like I am a short order cook. The good news is that he loves healthy food but he eats in excess. I have never seen such a bottomless pit. So why is he so tiny? He does have food allergies and sensitivities that have been mostly identified but I fear that there may be more. I am trying to rule out celiac disease (something I have) but I have read that the tests are not that accurate in kids so young. He already passed one blood panel a couple of months ago but he has never consumed much gluten so I don't know how good that test was for him.

What do you think?

Thanks in advance!

***A couple of weeks ago I found a brown spot on his front tooth that looks a lot like the enamel defects I have read about.

****He was born big BTW at 9.5 lbs but fell down to the 10 and 20th percentiles in weight within the first 6 months.

[Guest j_mommy]

Is he consitantly growing?????? I mean...is he on the same growing curve????

[Ursa Major]

I say there is definite reason for concern, and I would guess that he is gluten intolerant as well.

I have a grandson who grew consistently (Ethan is five now), but was so skinny you could see every rib. This boy was ALWAYS hungry and would ask for food every few minutes. I was there at meals quite a few times, and he was never full. My daughter would eventually say that he had enough to eat, and would refuse to give him more, and he would cry. Poor little guy.

He also started having pains in his legs when he was three, and was very emotional. Whenever he hurt himself, or sometimes just when somebody looked at him the wrong way, he would cry for hours and would be inconsolable. My daughter decided that he was a little wimp and would often not comfort him, as to not encourage his wimpiness. He also never had regular, formed BMs.

About three months ago, just so I would stop bugging her about it, she put him on a gluten-free diet. What a difference! Immediately he stopped being so emotional. When he hurts himself he might cry for a couple of minutes, like other kids, and will then go back to being happy. His leg pains went away, and within a couple of days he had his first solid BM ever.

Just six months ago, when I visited, he jumped into my arms from the stairs, a few steps up. He was so light it scared me!

I visited last weekend, and when I lifted him up to say good-bye, I was delighted to find that he was heavy! He is still slender (all my grandkids are, and all my kids were), but he has a normal weight now. I am so happy!

So, I say follow your instincts on this one and forget about blood work. Put him on the gluten-free diet to see if it will make a difference. And while you are at it, cut dairy out, too (my grandson is intolerant to dairy and nightshades as well).

I say if a skinny kid eats and eats, there is a problem. By the way, my son is like that, too. He is 24 and married and won't listen to me, unfortunately. But I am sure he is also dairy and gluten intolerant. One of these days, when I have the money, I will have him tested by Enterolab. He agreed that he would cooperate if I pay for it. He is a very normal height at 6 feet. He always grew, but was way too skinny, had those leg pains and still is a bottomless pit when it comes to food. And he is the worst scatter brain ever.

I just wished I would have known about gluten when my kids were little! I think every one of them has a gluten problem. My oldest daughter (little Ethan's mom) has finally made her family gluten-free (except for her husband, who won't give up gluten). She says that she has so much more energy without gluten.

[ItchyMeredith]

Thanks for your advice. Can you do Enterolab on a 2 year old?

[Ursa Major]

Thanks for your advice. Can you do Enterolab on a 2 year old?

Yes, absolutely, that is a great idea! Then you would have definitive answers, anyway. You would also know if dairy and soy are a problem as well.

[Owen'sMom]

I have a little peanut myself. My son is almost 2 1/2 years old and is 34 inches tall and weighs about 26.5lbs. Which also puts him low in the percentiles, I'm not too concerned though as he used to be FTT last year and wasn't even on the charts.

He was born at 7lbs13oz and was 20 inches, which is about 50 percentile. Than by 4 months he was up to the 70th, but after we introduced solids he started falling off the charts.

My son also constantly asks about food all day long and yet doesn't put a lot of weight on, he can actually outeat his 7yr old brother.

We are still undergoing testing at the moment and it's tough as we are stationed overseas in Germany. I'm german but the german doctors are of no help with all the problems.

We had him tested through enterolab and it said he has a casein and gluten intolerance, yet the german doctors don't take this as a diagnosis.

In the next month or so we'll be heading to Walter Reed and get him scoped to figure out what is wrong on his inside and hopefully make him feel better.

[goldyjlox]

My daughter is 3 /12 and she is exactly the same...super skinny and is always asking for food. She doesnt have regular BM either. She is irratable and sometimes looks a bit sickly but she is fine otherwise. I asked my doctor about it and he doesnt seem concerned about her weight, she is 34.4 lbs and in the 50th% for her weight. Since I just got DX I am concerned about my kids, my son is almost a year and he has rashes in his diaper now for 8 weeks and they are not diaper rashes. Both my kids have been refered to a Pediatric Allergin.

I would talk to your doctor...I am concerned about my daughter and I am going to have the bloodtest done as hard as that will be. And I am decreasing the Gluten in her diet.

[Ursa Major]

Owen's mom and Jess, you both know there is a problem, and you suspect it is gluten. You absolutely DO NOT need a doctor's permission to remove gluten from your children's diet! If it makes a difference, you know what the problem is, and it doesn't matter what the doctor says. The gluten-free diet is very healthy, nobody needs any grains at all to be well, that is a myth perpetuated by the grain industry. Of course they want to sell their products!

And if Enterolab says a kid is intolerant to dairy and gluten, why waste the money you spent on these tests, by not taking them seriously, just because a doctor doesn't? A lot of doctors are terribly ignorant on these issues. Why have kids suffer because of that?

My oldest daughter finally just made all her kids gluten-free, and couldn't care less what any doctor says. Her kids feel better, that's all that counts. Please do your children a favour, and do the same.

[kevieb]

ladies, i am in the same boat with my youngest child. she very skinny---you can see all her ribs, she gets rashy on her behind, (but it does not look like DH) it comes and goes. sylvia also had brown horizontal ridges across her front teeth. she had 6 teeth crowned a few months after she turned 3---they worked on 12 teeth total. the dentist told me she has enamel hypoplasia. she does not appear to be getting any further damage to her teeth. she is a wild, squirrly, happy little girl, but i do worry whether or not she could have celiac disease. so far, she has tested negative. she had health problems and was FTT until she was 2. they tell me that this could also be the cause of her teeth problems. all of our meals are gluten free, but i do keep certain wheat-based things around for the non-celiacs at home. i guess this means sylvia is gluten-light. at this time, i choose not to put her gluten free because it is important to me to have an actual diagnosis and she is doing well. i will probably have her tested for celiac again soon, and will probably continue to check her on a regular basis.

just like my daughter, your kids seem to have little things that indicate the possibility of celiac disease, and we know it is a real possibility since we already have diagnosed family members.

[gfpaperdoll]

Owen's mom and Jess, you both know there is a problem, and you suspect it is gluten. You absolutely DO NOT need a doctor's permission to remove gluten from your children's diet! If it makes a difference, you know what the problem is, and it doesn't matter what the doctor says. The gluten-free diet is very healthy, nobody needs any grains at all to be well, that is a myth perpetuated by the grain industry. Of course they want to sell their products!

And if Enterolab says a kid is intolerant to dairy and gluten, why waste the money you spent on these tests, by not taking them seriously, just because a doctor doesn't? A lot of doctors are terribly ignorant on these issues. Why have kids suffer because of that?

My oldest daughter finally just made all her kids gluten-free, and couldn't care less what any doctor says. Her kids feel better, that's all that counts. Please do your children a favour, and do the same.

Way to go Ursa... my opinion exactly.

I would just like to add, that if you have celiac & know how well that you feel on the diet & you know what made you sick - how can you feed it to your children?!! I just do not get this. It is like we have to line up like robots & wait for the doctors to tell us something that we already know. You should hear some of the people rant that almost lost their children - they were literally in the hospital at deaths door - the parents will not now touch wheat... & you should hear the idiot doctor advisor to our support group argue with them that a gluten-free diet is not necessary for them! We all thought the doctor was nuts...

How are the parents going to feel if the children get diabetes or cancer or something else before they test positive for celiac????????

[Owen'sMom]

The german GI now thinks he might have fructose malabsorption so they want him on a fructose free diet. This is were we are at right now with the testing.

I would like to know what exactly we are all dealing with, Owen had improved on the gluten free diet but wasn't perfect either, hence the reasoning we are still trying to figure things out.

So hopefully with a scope we'll have more answers.