New With Questions

[MamaJo]

I recently changed our families diet to gluten-free/DF, hoping we would see improvements in 3 of our children that have various food issues, one being our 18mo old son. I suspected intolerance to dairy and wheat for him. Since changing over a couple of weeks ago I saw great improvement in his sleeping habits, as well as his stools. I had also had a couple of cheat moments, and he suffered greatly throughout those evenings, tossing and turning, whining and crying. It just proved to me that we were on the right track.

Now my question. Wednesday night we had popcorn. Yesterday he ended up having 3 very soft, very large stools. All were full of corn hulls, and after the first one I could see that his butt was getting red and irritated. Is it possible that the irritation came simply from the abrasiveness of the hulls rubbing his skin? I'm guessing not, since it was also very soft, and the redness was widespread, though one can hope! I do recall him having grainy stools and redness after eating cornbread, though at the time I thought it was due to the wheat that was in the recipe. Now I'm not so sure. If it IS the corn, does that mean that even cooked corn (ie: corn on the cob) would affect him, or is it possible that it is just the whole grains? For example, a few of us suffer from Oral Allergy Syndrome, where we can not tolerate many raw fruits and vegetables, though we can eat them cooked. Before we went on the diet he was reacting mostly to whole grains. For example, I found that when I ground our own wheat to make bread, he would end up with grainy stools and a rash. However, when I purchased and used unbleached all purpose flour, it was not like that. One major change that I didn't realize at the time was that until we started the GFDF, he had not had formed stools, which he now does (or did until yesterday). That also shows me that we are on the right track.

I need to figure out this corn thing though. We have company coming for the holiday weekend, and I was preparing to make a big pot of sloppy joe for their arrival tonight. I usually add corn to this. Also, I bought a bunch of corn tortillas for myself and the children to eat when we have chicken salad wraps tomorrow for lunch. Maybe I shouldn't have been so lazy, and stuck to trying to make up some rice tortillas

What do you think?

[swalker]

My grandson is sensitive to wheat, dairy, corn and soy and from what I've read, they are the four most common ones. It's not unusual to react more strongly to freshly ground flour than it is to AP flour from the store because the stuff from the store basically cardboard, not a lot of food value left.

[Salax]

Becareful with whole corn. It's very dificult to digest regardless but even harder in whole kernals. Many GI's told me it's not un common for corn to come out whole. I thought I also read somewhere that kids weren't suppose to eat corn until after a certain age. Not sure on that, but I would recommend if your little one has other food issues, for now cut out corn and let the digestive track heal..then perhaps slowly bring corn back in with tortillas and chips..then try whole corn. Best of luck.

[MamaJo]

Thank you. Do you think that popcorn is different from 'regular' corn? I had a friend tell me yesterday that her daughter will get diaper rashes from popcorn, but not corn in general.

I did add the corn to the sloppy joe, though I picked his out.

[swalker]

My grandson has behavour reactions to all corn although he reacts the most strongly to popcorn and the least to cornstarch as an ingredient in manufactured products.