Celiac Or Just A Lot Of Food Intolerances?

[norahsmommy]

My youngest daughter who is 16 months old has had issues since we started her on solids at 6 months. She gets SEVERELY constipated, I am talking 9 days without poop. When she does poop its terribly painful for her. So anyway, when she was about 9 months old we did 3 elimination diets and each time when we eliminated gluten products she got better. So we took her off gluten. She had better poops but soon we realized there were other foods that gave her issues. She has problems with dairy, bananas, quinoa, soy and who knows what else. She got better when I eliminated the obvious problems but now there is something else. I don't know if its possibly gluten contamination in some of her foods such as chex corn or rice cereal or if its the meat she has suddenly started eating alot of in the last couple of months. She had to go to the doctor after not pooping for 7 days and the put her on daily stool softener. With that she is still only going every 4 days and that's WITH a glycerin suppository to make her poop. So I don't know whats going on. our doc wants to see how long it takes her to poop without the suppository but still using the softener. He said as soon as we want to put her back on a full gluten diet he will order the celiac test for her. I didn't even mention celiac so at least he is thinking the same thing as us. The other doc just kept telling us to increase her fluids. ARG! This is so frustrating! I feel like as soon as I figure her out something else comes up!

[mushroom]

Can you keep her off processed foods for a while and just serve whole foods and see if eliminating the grains makes any difference?

[jenngolightly]

My youngest daughter who is 16 months old has had issues since we started her on solids at 6 months. She gets SEVERELY constipated, I am talking 9 days without poop. When she does poop its terribly painful for her. So anyway, when she was about 9 months old we did 3 elimination diets and each time when we eliminated gluten products she got better. So we took her off gluten. She had better poops but soon we realized there were other foods that gave her issues. She has problems with dairy, bananas, quinoa, soy and who knows what else. She got better when I eliminated the obvious problems but now there is something else. I don't know if its possibly gluten contamination in some of her foods such as chex corn or rice cereal or if its the meat she has suddenly started eating alot of in the last couple of months. She had to go to the doctor after not pooping for 7 days and the put her on daily stool softener. With that she is still only going every 4 days and that's WITH a glycerin suppository to make her poop. So I don't know whats going on. our doc wants to see how long it takes her to poop without the suppository but still using the softener. He said as soon as we want to put her back on a full gluten diet he will order the celiac test for her. I didn't even mention celiac so at least he is thinking the same thing as us. The other doc just kept telling us to increase her fluids. ARG! This is so frustrating! I feel like as soon as I figure her out something else comes up!

Daily stool softeners are not good for long term use. You'll get hooked on them and then you can't go without them. They're "laxatives" hidden under the name "stool softeners".

I've had constipation since I was a baby, too. I don't eat gluten, soy, corn, sugar, grains, or dairy. The two that I ditched that were most helpful for my constipation were dairy and sugar. SUGAR? Yep, sugar.

For your daughter, I agree with other people and get rid of grains for a while. Also, corn is an "alert" because some people can't tolerate that grain at all. I've seen dairy, soy, and corn as secondary intolerances on this forum a lot.

Going to whole foods for a while is an okay idea, except that you'll want to keep her off of dairy, soy, and corn. Keep her diet high in fiber - green leafy veggies are good for that. You may need to hide them in other foods if she doesn't like the taste. I'm not surprised that the bananas were a problem. When kids have diarrhea you give them them the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast), so stay away from those foods. Doctor was right about fluids, even if he was rude and didn't take you seriously about the severity of her illness. If she's eating too many grains at the expense of fiber and fluids, it might be aggravating her constipation.

The goal is to get her off the stool softeners asap. They mask the problem. What will happen is she'll start having regular poops and you'll think everything is okay. But it's not. Get her diet right.

Good luck!