Should My 11 Month Old Be Tested?

[on-belay]

Hello-

It looks like there is a lot of knowledgeable people here and I could use some guidance. I just have a nagging feeling that something is not quite right with my daughter. My son (age 2) has food allergies, so I had my daughter (11 months) tested earlier this month. She tested negative to everything in the scratch panel, but is dairy and soy intolerant (versus allergic). She is on Alimentum baby formula for protein sensitivity. She was 25%ile for weight at birth, at 3, 6, and 9 months. I plotted her weight after a doctor's appointment yesterday for other illness, and she is barely 3%ile. She has alomost fallen off the chart in the last two and a half months. She is really lousy at feeding herself, but does a great job with graham crackers, cheerios and other assorted crackers- all gluten. She began getting most of this about age 9 months or so.

She is not colicky and is pleasant quite often, but she seems to squawk an awful lot and her diapers are the WORST smelling things in the world. Her stomach almost never feels supple, like most babies. She has eczema, although mildly. I understand that a significant number of celiacs cannot tolerate dairy, as well.

I had already been thinking something might not be quite right before plotting her wright on the growth chart, and now that has me quite concerned. No other celiac in the family that I am aware of.

-Would you have her tested?

-Should I ask for the blood test (IgG and IgA?) or go for the stool sample sent to the lab mentioned her so often?

-Can the blood test be done in a pediatrician's office?

-Her protein sensitivity was diagnosed via microscopic blood in her stool at the ped's office. Would they be likely to be able to detect celiac there as well?

-Do most insurance companies cover testing from the lab mentioned in other posts?

Help. please! This is mostly mother's intuition, but I put a lot of stock in that. I don't want my doctor to think I am nuts for this, but I have a gut feeling (no pun intended, really!) that there is something more than a dairy and soy intolerance.

Thank you for reading this novella. Any advice would be appreciated.

Jillian & skinny baby Honora

[gf4life]

I would ask for testing if it were my child. They will do a blood test called a Celiac Panel, if the doctor is knowledgable enough. Then if those are positive, then they will want to do a biopsy. If you don't care about having a diagnosis from a conventional doctor and just want to know if gluten is causing your duaghter's problem, then I would highly recommend Open Original Shared Link . I had my testing done through them after testing negative on the blood tests (which are very unreliable!) and have since had a biopsy, also negative (and also unreliable, especially in children).

You can check out the tests from Enterolab through the link above, and the nice part about them is that they are very non-invasive. No needles, no anesthesia, no tubes down the throat, no fasting for tests, etc. They will send you a container to collect her stool, and two swabs to collect tissue cells from the inside of her cheek. You mail them back and have your results back within a few weeks. They are the most accurate and easiest tests available for checking for gluten sensitivity (also known as gluten intolerance, and Celiac Disease in its late stages).

I do hope you are able to get your daughter tested soon. I did not have any known celiacs in my family either, but sometimes it is there and just not known. The dietary intolerances your daughter has to milk and soy are not uncommon in celiacs either. I am diary intolerant, and allergic to soy, so I can relate.

I hope I have helped a little.

God bless,

Mariann

[seeking-wholeness]

Hi, Jillian!

Welcome to the board!

I, too, put a lot of stock in mother's intuition. My two children look like the picture of health to most people because they are tall, but my older son began producing bulky, loose, extremely foul-smelling stools and falling down the weight charts pretty much as soon as he began eating solid foods. It was always a struggle to get him to eat, too, and he had nasty eczema on his cheeks during his first winter. His pediatrician said he was fine, though, so I dropped the matter. It was only after his younger brother suddenly developed the EXACT SAME sort of stools shortly after I began giving him rye crackers to teethe on that I said, "OK, SOMEthing is going on here, and I am going to find out what it is!" My younger boy also has a problem with eczema, worse than his brother's, but he has not fallen down the weight charts at all. I attribute this to the fact that I RELIGIOUSLY kept wheat out of his diet (I hadn't kept it out of his brother's) AND MINE, since I was breastfeeding him. After being gluten-free for almost four months (all of us), I am convinced to my satisfaction that we are all gluten-sensitive, but I plan to have us all tested through Enterolab as soon as I can afford it. I have a lot more faith in stool testing than in blood work or even a biopsy. I doubt that insurance would cover it, but you might want to check with your provider to see what they have to say. I think it is definitely a good idea to pursue testing of some sort for your daughter, and I wish you the best of luck!