3 Year Old Daughter

[jmrogers31]

My daughter had her three year old checkup today. She was in the 11th percentile for height. Ever since she was a baby her height has always been 9th percentile, 13th percentile, 12th percentile, etc. Today the doctor was concerned. He mentioned that she really isn't catching up in height and is a little behind with some of her language skills for a three year old and especially compared to her five year old sister who was always advanced. I mentioned that she also has night terrors and that I was genetically tested and carry both the DQ2 and DQ8 Celiac gene and she has at least one copy of each. He definitely thinks Celiac could be a possibility considering I passed the gene to her. But he wants her to take a multivitamin with Iron for 4 months and come back and get her height tested again. If she still isn't growing, have her tested for Celiac. She doesn't seem to have digestional issues from eating gluten. My question is for those of you with young children with Celiac, what tipped you off? She has night terrors, not developing with language even though we work with her, not growing, not responding to potty training. She just seems a little behind where she should be. She could just be a short kid who is a late bloomer but I wanted to know what to look for. Thanks.

[anna34]

Our daughter started showing signs at age 3. She was short and her iron was low. She also had poor tooth enamel as noticed by her dentist at her first check-up. Her kindergarten teacher commented that she was fatigued/tired often. She had pale skin, bruised easily, and had darkish circles under her eyes. The doctor suggested supplementing iron and watching it for a few months. Her iron went even lower. Then she was referred to a ped G.I.

Now, she also had the "typical" symptoms of bloating, pain, gas, and D. It was the iron dropping that got her referred though.

Hopefully your little one is feeling better soon!

[jmrogers31]

Our daughter started showing signs at age 3. She was short and her iron was low. She also had poor tooth enamel as noticed by her dentist at her first check-up. Her kindergarten teacher commented that she was fatigued/tired often. She had pale skin, bruised easily, and had darkish circles under her eyes. The doctor suggested supplementing iron and watching it for a few months. Her iron went even lower. Then she was referred to a ped G.I.

Now, she also had the "typical" symptoms of bloating, pain, gas, and D. It was the iron dropping that got her referred though.

Hopefully your little one is feeling better soon!

Thanks for your response. That is interesting about the tooth enamel, she has this yellow tint on her teeth that I can't get off no matter how much we brush. I will push for her to be tested if she hasn't shown progress in the next 3 months. I would feel really bad if she gets it so young. I hope she doesn't resent dear old Dad if I passed this on to her.

[mommida]

Get her tested now before you start avoiding gluten or try the diet.

[Roda]

My son was a lot older almost 6 when he was diagnosed. He was born a normal weight and height, 8 lb 8 oz and 21" long, but went down on the growth curve and was maybe 18 lb. at 12 months. He did have a lot of problems as an infant with recurrent rhinosinusitis, reflux, colic, rashes, yeast overgrowth. I had to eliminate all dairy, oats, rice and tree nuts out of my diet or he would react. The reflux was still a problem and because of it it caused reactive airway disease that we treated from about 9 months old till age three. He has no problems with that now. By the time he was 3 1/2 he seemed to have "outgrown" most of the issues he had. He met all of his milestones early or on time. The only thing was that he was very low on the growth curve for his weigh and slightly low for height. He a little over 3 1/2 when I was diagnosed and did not exhibit any issues at that time. He was blood tested and was negative. At age 5 1/2 we started noticing changes in his behavior, irrational obcessive behavior, temper tantrums, tummy aches, and occasional fat in the stool. I took him to a new allergist to be tested for food allergies(because of issues as baby) and retested for celiac. He was positive on the IgA tTG. I took him gluten free without the scope/biopsy. I did do a gluten challenge on him after he was gluten free for about four months. I was going to do the three month challange for a scope but after three days, the poor child was miserable. His behavior changed becoming more emotional/irritable, complained of stomach aches, temper tantrums started back and so did his OCD behavior over particular things. My husband said that he had enough evidence that we didn't need to pursue it any further, so we quit the challange. He is now 6 and will be turning 7 in Dec.

I don't really know what the benefit of waiting to do the tests. Why not get her screened now? If the blood work is positive you can address it now. If it is negative though it doesn't "rule out" gluten and celiac as an issue. Testing in children is much less reliable than adults.

As for the tooth enamal and teeth problems I know that can be common. The only problems my youngest son had was cavities in his baby teeth and had to have his first fillings when he was around 3. He cut his bottom 6 year molars back in the late spring/summer and they came in abnormal and with discolaration. One even came in with a cavity already in it. I was told by the dentist that the enamel is very soft and abnormal. When the dentist was filling the cavity, the tooth structure was just crumbling. She had to do more extensive work on it than she planned. He has not lost any baby teeth yet, but has his bottom two incisors a little loose. I hope he doesn't have the same problem with them as the molars. At least with the molars they are in the way back and noone really sees them. If the front teeth have issues then we may be looking at some cosmetic/restorative work. We will just have to wait and see. His top two 6 year molars have not erupted yet, so I don't know if those are affected yet or not. He seems to be late in his permanant tooth eruption in my opinion but he may be well with in the norm.

[anna34]

Thanks for your response. That is interesting about the tooth enamel, she has this yellow tint on her teeth that I can't get off no matter how much we brush. I will push for her to be tested if she hasn't shown progress in the next 3 months. I would feel really bad if she gets it so young. I hope she doesn't resent dear old Dad if I passed this on to her.

I agree about testing earlier rather than waiting. Here's one reason:

Our DD has already had to have 2 fillings because we didn't get to the bottom of things until she was almost 6. She had to have a type of sealer painted on her baby molars to prevent further caveties since her enamel is so bad. Once her baby teeth start falling out, the dentist expects that her adult teeth will have equally poor enamel (because of the Celiac) and will need to be sealed with the stuff as soon as they erupt. Our DD also has some teeth that are tinted, as you described.

Also, if your DD does have Celiac, waiting to conduct the tests means she could become sick(er) between now and then. As for feeling bad about her possibly developing this so young, try not to. In some ways, it's better for you to find out she has it while she is young because that means you (and eventually she) will have a grasp on her overall health early on. She won't have to incur intestional damage for years before realizing she is sick. It's hard at first, but it's better to know now, in my opinion.