Jump to content
This site uses cookies. Continued use is acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. More Info... ×

  • Welcome to Celiac.com!

    You have found your celiac tribe! Join us and ask questions in our forum, share your story, and connect with others.



  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A1):

    Celiac.com Sponsor (A1-M):

  • Get Celiac.com Updates:
    Support Our Content
    eNewsletter
    Donate

Pica?

Poppi

Recommended Posts

Poppi Enthusiast
Poppi
Posted

I'll preface this by saying that I have made a doctor's appointment for Lily but I have to wait more than a week and I'm wondering if anyone else has any similar experiences.

Lily is 2 and seems to be perfectly healthy, she is a bit small for her age but active, happy and rarely gets sick. Her bowel movements are normal and she doesn't appear to be in pain.

She is an incredibly picky eater. She likes baked goods, fruit and yogurt. That's pretty much it. 90% of the baked goods she eats are gluten free because I obviously can't bake with wheat flour. I just passed her picky eating off to being 2.

However... she eats other stuff. She's obsessed withe eating felt tipped markers and sidewalk chalk and her brother has this little plaster statue of an ice cream cone that she has actually eaten chunks out of. Today I found a spot behind the living room curtains where she has apparently been eating the drywall right out of the wall. It looks like she's been picking the pain chips off and then using her teeth to scrape drywall out.

So I looked up Pica and discovered that it can be a symptom of celiac. Celiac runs in my family but can pica be the only symptom? Anyone else have a kid with pica?

Thanks

Celiac.com Sponsor (A8):
Celiac.com Sponsor (A8):

Celiac.com Sponsor (A8-M):


Roda Rising Star
Roda
Posted

Get her iron checked. A lot of time pica can be a symptom of low iron. Make sure they do all of the iron tests including ferritin and not just go by her hemaglobin and hematocrit which is in a CBC. I was told for almost a year that I was not "anemic" because I had normal hemaglobin and hematocrit. All the while I would eat crushed ice chips all day long. I couldn't get enough! I even had coworkers comment on how pale I was and wondered if I was anemic. I kept telling them the doctor said I wasn't (this was before I knew any better). Eventually the H & H (a year later) was low indicating a problem. It wasn't for another 6 months that anyone bothered to check my actual iron and ferritin. They were rock bottom! It took a total of 2.5 years before I got diagnosed with celiac. You may want to get other vitamin and mineral tests done, since she possibly could be deficient in something else. My oldest son, given the opportunity is an ice eater, and is a little pasty also. I did have his iron/ferritin checked once and at that time they were normal. Funny now that my iron stores and ferritin are finaly normal, I have no desire to consume ice anymore.

sa1937 Community Regular
sa1937
Posted

My daughter chewed ice constantly and she is anemic, too (as well as diagnosed with celiac in late Aug.) Next time I talk with her, I'll have to ask if she still does.

ETA: She's also hypo-thyroid but I don't think that has anything to do with the ice chewing.

Darn210 Enthusiast
Darn210
Posted

Don't know if you saw this . . . a previous discussion of pica:

lovegrov Collaborator
lovegrov
Posted

Looking back to when I was a kid this was very obviously one of my symptoms. I ate chalk, soft rocks, dirt and so on. At various times as an adult I had the same compulsion. It disappeared completely after I went gluten-free.

richard

Poppi Enthusiast
Poppi
Posted
  • Author
:( I'm so worried about her. I don't mind having Celiac, I'm a grown up I can deal with it. I was hoping my kids being half Asian would protect them since it's so uncommon in Asians. Well, I'll request the Celiac bloodwork along with the other vitamin/mineral stuff next week.
mommida Enthusiast
mommida
Posted

You might want to add in the testing for Pernicious Anemia.

As for your "picky eater", does your little one chew food and then spit it out? That is another symptom of PICA.

I had pica when I was pregnant. Only stuck to the ice though. The crunchier ~the better, was the feeling that I was going for.

Celiac.com Sponsor (A8):
Celiac.com Sponsor (A8):

Celiac.com Sponsor (A8-M):


Poppi Enthusiast
Poppi
Posted
  • Author

You might want to add in the testing for Pernicious Anemia.

As for your "picky eater", does your little one chew food and then spit it out? That is another symptom of PICA.

I had pica when I was pregnant. Only stuck to the ice though. The crunchier ~the better, was the feeling that I was going for.

Holy cow! Yes! She has always chewed her food and spit it out, ever since she was just starting to eat, it drives us crazy!

mommida Enthusiast
mommida
Posted

Funny, I just knew when you said picky eater! I just had a flashback of my daughter spitting dinner back on her plate after she worked so hard on chewing it.

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing
  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A19):


  • Member Statistics

    • Total Members
      129,588
    • Most Online (within 30 mins)
      7,748
    DJ ALLEN
    Newest Member
    DJ ALLEN
    Joined
  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A20):

  • Forum Statistics

    • Total Topics
      121.2k
    • Total Posts
      1m
  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A22):



  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A21):


  • Upcoming Events

  • Posts

    • Alibu
      Waiting on biopsy after positive bloodwork, but also not really believing this is real

      By Alibu · Posted

      I was tested back in 2017 and my TTG-IGA was mildly elevated (an 11 with reference range <4) but my EMA was negative and biopsy was negative. Fast forward to 2 weeks ago where I was like y'know what, I still have so many symptoms and I'm always so sick, I should repeat this, thinking it was not going to be positive.  I also found out through 23 and me that I do have the HLA-DQ2.5 gene so I thought it would be good to repeat given my ongoing symptoms. Well my blood work came back with a ttg-iga level of 152.6 with a reference range of <15 and my EMA was positive and EMA titer was 1:10 with reference range of <1:5. I guess I'm nervous that I'm going to do the biopsy and it's going to be negative again, especially since I also had an endoscopy in 2020, not to look for celiac but just as a regular 5 year thing I do because of all my GI issues, and they didn't see anything then either. I have no idea how long the EMA has been positive but I'm wondering if it's very recent, if the biopsy will show damage and if so, if they'll say well the biopsy is the gold standard so it's not celiac? I of course am doing all the things to convince myself that it isn't real. Do a lot of people go through this? I think because back in 2017 my ttg-iga was elevated but not a huge amount and my EMA was negative and my biopsy was negative, I keep thinking this time it's going to be different. But this time my ttg-iga is 152.6 with reference range <15, and my EMA was positive. BUT, my titer is only 1:10 and I keep reading how most people here had a ttg-iga in the hundreds or thousands, and the EMA titer was much higher. So now I am convinced that it was a false positive and when they do the biopsy it'll be negative.
    • trents
      Found coffee or coffee pods that contain gluten

      By trents · Posted

      Welcome to the forum, @linnylou73! Are you claiming this based on a reaction or based upon actual testing?
    • linnylou73
      Found coffee or coffee pods that contain gluten

      By linnylou73 · Posted

      Sams club membermark columbian coffee is either cross contaminated or the pods contain gluten
    • KimMS
      Helping child go strict gluten-free and concerns about growth/height

      By KimMS · Posted

      Thank you! Very helpful.
    • Scott Adams
      Helping child go strict gluten-free and concerns about growth/height

      By Scott Adams · Posted

      This varies a lot from person to person. I include foods that are not certified gluten-free but are labelled "gluten-free", while super sensitive people only use certified gluten-free. Both types of products have been found to contain gluten, so there are no guarantees either way: It you are in the super sensitive group, eating a whole foods based diet where you prepare everything is the safest bet, but it's also difficult. Eating out is the the most risky, even if a restaurant has a gluten-free menu. I also include items that are naturally gluten-free, for example refried beans, tuna, pasta sauces, salsas, etc., which have a low overall risk of contamination.
×
×
  • Create New...