Weight Loss, Drop On Growth Chart And Mild/intermittent Symptoms...

[SED]

Just took my child in for a pedi checkup. She is 10. Within the last month she has had an unintentional 5 lb. weight loss. I wasn't too worried since there were really no *new* associated signs and symptoms. However, once at the peds office he voiced some concern since she had dropped from the 90th percentile in height a few years ago to the 50th now.

Since being home, I've started to wonder about some other mild to moderate symptoms that are seemingly intermittent and up til now, seemingly unrelated.

1. She gets canker sores a lot. At least 1-2x/ month.

2. She has intermittent times when she has a few days of diarrhea or loose stools. She doesn't seem overly bothered by it, but she does have some abdominal cramping and urgency. We've always chalked it up to a mild lactose intolerance, but she hardly ever drinks milk anymore and these things sometimes happen when no milk products have been consumed.

I called the ped back just to let him know about these two things that I didn't think to tell him about. I spoke with the office "nurse" who proceeded to tell me he thought these things were unrelated . I said "yeah, well, maybe..but when you combine them with unintentional weight loss and a pretty significant growth chart drop then I thought Dr.X may want to be the one to decide that."

Any and all thoughts are welcome, thanks!

[ravenwoodglass]

I would ask them to do a full celiac panel on her.

[momxyz]

Your daughter sounds like my daughter at age 11. I have posted her story elsewhere on this board (see also my profile)

I would pursue testing, but be aware that false negatives or inconclusive results are not infrequent, especially if symptoms are not all that obvious - on the mild side like you described.

Other problems and manifestations may show up down the road. If I knew back then what I know, I would have considered the gluten free diet sooner rather than later.

Please let us know how things go....