Confused About Oats

[seansmom]

My son is 8 months old, and every time we gave him cheerios, he was up all night crying. We had him allergy tested, and that was negative for all the grains. We took him off all finger foods, and he was better in three days. The gi clinic mentioned celiac, and said to retry gluten foods. Again, he had diarrhea, and fussiness on cheerios. But when I tried gluten finger foods that do not contain oats (crackers, wheat bread etc.) He is fine. Again tried cheerios and a oat four containing snack, and another sleepless night! Could he have celiac and only react to oats, and if I give him gluten but not oats, will I get reliable blood test/endo in 3 to 6 months? Help!

[KaitiUSA]

During all testing he needs to be on all of gluten heavily. That way you can get reliable testing. If he is off of gluten for 3-6 months you will not get reliable tests.

Some people get no symptoms with celiac but they still get the damage done by gluten. It is possible he only reacts to Oats that you can tell and have celiac. Oats in the U.S are highly contaminated with wheat so they will contain gluten.

If he tests negative for celiac then maybe it is a Oat intolerance that he has.

[scaredparent]

My son started out being breastfed and was growing and doing fine and at 3 months my dr told me to start him on rice cereal for a week and then oatmeal cereal 1 wk later. So I did. To make a long story short, he got very sick. The diahrea started and kept going and going. He would be put in the hospital for being dehydrated and so sick. We would pull him off of all food and then rehydrate him and they would release him and tell me to put him back of food. I would take him home 1 wk later he would be back of food and then an UPI would start then the vomiting and then the diahrea. Guess where we ended up at that's right the hospital. We did this 3 times in the first 1 of this childs life. When he was 15 mo old we saw a GI. He did a ton of test on for being celiac disease and they came back neg. We had seen an allergist and immunoligist starting when he was 4 mo old, because of the UPI and the dh thinking it was allergy related. He had said that he had esosinophic gatrointeris. Meaning he is allergic to basically everything. The two things I knew he was allergic to was oats and beans. The only way to get a clinical diagnosis is to do a biopsy. So that is when we started to see GI dr. We did an upper Gi and gastric empting scan and 22 stool samples (what fun ahahh) and 9 tubes of blood. Every thing came back normal. Then he had a biopsy done and you guessed it neg. According to the dr this child was normal. I have 4 other children and knew that something was wrong. By the time everything was done he was 20 mo old and was haveing between 15-18 stools a day (like water and sometimes greasy and sometimes with food in them). Vomiting every night and was only weighting about 20 lbs and sleeping between 18-20 hrs a day. and blisters on his bottom and face the size of quarters. I called the dr and said we will do something now or I will find a new dr. The nurse said try taking him off of dairy. I said already had tried that. She said try the gluten-free diet. That was on a Friday and by Tuesday the rash was gone, stools were down to two a day and had some constistance to them, sleeping pattern was normal. Then he started to get sick again but not as bad. So the finally determination was esosinophic gastrintisis with a major glutten allergy. Tx is Singular, Zyertc and a gluten-free diet. I don't mean to ramble but sometimes it can be just noticable with one thing like oats. and still be celiac disease. I think that the reason that my son's test all came back neg is because he was to young. I don't have a postive test results but my son is healthy and I don't need a dr to tell me that. If you are like me and dont' need a dx I would make him gluten-free and see how he does if he gets better you know that was what it is. If you want a dx you will have to be on glutten for atleast 3 mo and I would wait till he was atleast 18mo to 2 years old. If I would of been told when my son was 8 mo old about a gluten-free diet I would of done it. I know my dr does what him to go back of glutten at the age of 5 and be retested to make sure that he doesn't have celiac disease and to see if he can tolerate glutten. If he gets diahera back then we know that he will be gluten-free for the rest of his life. Good luck and remember you are your childs best advocate and moms know best.

[seansmom]

thanks so much for all your valuable information. It brings to mind another point as I sit here at 7 am, and my son only slept 3 hours in his bed last night. I'm not sure that I can keep feeding him this stuff and making him cry all night, and feel miserable. I think he is too young. If i wati until he is 4 or 5 at least I can soothe him when his belly hurts. My husband had blood tests Friday and should hear back Monday. He has some symptoms also. If he is positive, and Sean continues to be fussy on gluten (he has a little diarrhea, but mostly just fussy and not sleeping, and worsened reflux) then I will make Sean gluten free until he is a little older. Does that seem reasonable. Has anyone else just gone by symptoms alone?