4 Year Old With Symptoms

[fultsy]

I have a 4 year old son who back in the spring of 2006 had a blood test for celiac. That came back positive. We then had to wait over 3 months for endoscopy. In that 3 months we cut back on gluten. His endoscopy came back negative. They also tested him for cystic fibrosis at that time. Over the last year he still has diarhea and now he is constipated according to Ped. I took him in a few weeks ago as he was having blood in stool. He then put him on a laxative and a stool softner. Let me tell you there is no happy medium. If I cut down on lax. or sofner he has a tough time. Then the other night his stool was black. (i am frustrated) I have called his Ped about 4 times as I have not heard anything from his labs. I don't want to cut back on what he eats if they want to do the other tests again. I just want to know what is wrong. We have also noticed his teeth are bad, tends to cranky, dark circles under eyes, pale, sometimes complains of aching legs. Do any of these sound like symptoms of celiac?

[aikiducky]

You may very well have had a false negative on the first biopsy. That or there wasn't quite enough damage yet at that time, or the results were interpreted incorrectly. Really there are a lot of possible explanations for the negative test. I do think the symptoms sound like celiac, plus you did have a positive blood test (which one?). Personally I would either repeat the testing, or try gluten free if you don't need an official diagnosis. It's not in your head in any case.

Pauliina

[Ridgewalker]

All of the symptoms you mentioned can be attributed to Celiac. Between that, and the fact that his blood test came back positive.... to me, that is more than enough of a reason to take him gluten-free, and not worry about any further testing right now. The bad teeth, in particular, implies malabsorption of nutrients. That's not something you want to prolong. (BTW, when my son went to the dentist at age 5, he had no less than 12 cavities, some requiring crowns. We're still trying to get through thousands of dollars in dental work done for him, no insurance.)

If you decide to take him gluten-free, do as much reading here on these message boards as possible and ask lots of questions. We'll help you- it's tricky at first, but gets much easier as you go.

-Sarah