Cd Child And Time At A Farm

[jsmasudek]

Hi all. My 7 year old son has been diagnosed for 4 years. We follow a strict gluten free diet and alot of his original symtoms are gone. In fact he has been growing like a weed for the past year or so. However, he has continued all along to have frequent loose stools. In fact he rarely has what I would call a "normal looking" stool. But the last few weekd have been worse with lots of stomach pain and frequent loose stools. At first I thought he had a stomach virsus becuase other family members had. But now I am wondering about his day camp. He started there about 6 weeks ago. It is wonderful program but it is held on a really working farm. He takes all his own food, but I am wondering about the influence of feed grains and such. I read somewhere on this board that gluten can be inhaled. Is this true? I had never heard that before.

Thanks.

[Guest Lucy]

You sure he isn't "trading" food with other kids? Just a thought.

[scaredparent]

My son is 2 so he puts everything in his mouth but if they have grain out thier and he is touching it and not washing his hands good and then eating he might be geting a cross contamination. Its on his hands then touchs food and food goes into his mouth. We live across the street from our feed mill and 1 and 1/2 blocks from 2 wheat field and during harvest and when they clean out our mills my son can't be outside because the dust settles on his toy and he touches the toy, toys to the mouth and then he is sick. This is just a thought about what it could be. My son also has esosinophlic gastroniteris and so he is "allergic to everything". He has a major allergy to glutten. He was 15 mo when he was tested and so I don't think the test was correct. It showed that he didn't have celiac disease. We have been gluten-free since Feb 05 and he is doing very well. Hope this helps and good luck.

[Roo]

Jsmasudek,

I don't have an answer to your question about your son, but something you said made me curious about something.

My 13 year old son has been gluten-free since March 05. He is definately on the small side and we were told the celiac disease was probably slowing down his growth due to Malabsorption. His vili were completely flattend even though he was completely asymtomatic. Anyway since going gluten-free in March he has grown 1 3/4" which is great, I don't know what we were looking for but somehow we thought he was going to have a bigger growth spurt.

I just took him last week to have his blood tested for the second time since since March and his markers were completely untraceable. Which is great. His TTG when he started was over 100 (they didn't give the exact number), the next time it was 70 and now it was 4! But my question is you said your son is "growing like a weed" can you be more specific? How much did he grow in how fast a time? MY son has not gone through puberty yet so that is a good thing as he has more time to grow. I've always thought they say that 3" a year is the average so at his rate 2" in 6 months is about 4" in a year so that's pretty good. but he is only 4'11" so we have alot of catching up to do. Do you think that maybe he only grew 1 3/4" in the first 6 months because he was just first healing for a part of that and now that he is completely healed his growth could really start to pick up?

I know you might not have all the answers to this, but if anyone else wants to chime in, be my guest, all opinions would help.

Thanks,

Roo

[jsmasudek]

Roo,

Matthew has grown 2 inches in the past 5 months or so and 6 inches in the past 18months according to his Peds GI Doc. Not sure what is normal per se, but he sure seems to be bigger everyday and his doc was quite please with his progress.

[jsmasudek]

[Lucy, I appreciate the the thought but I don't think this is it. He has had several bad accidents over the past few years and knows how sick he gets. Alot of the time he second guesses me as to wether he can eat someting or not. However, he is a kid and anything is possible!

[emeraldskies]

Height isn't necessarily an indicator that everything is fine. When I was 11, I grew a ton in a year (went from a size 1 shoe to a size 7) and was the second tallest child in my class (and played basketball for many years as the starting center, usually the tallest player on the team). But I did this by devouring large amounts of food--an entire pizza plus three other courses for a meal. I would sometimes vomit all night long (from being sick). I stopped eating massive quantities when my growth spurt ended. I am still on the tall side for my gender. I'm not claiming this is anything similar to what is happening with your son--I'm just trying to show an example of significant growth occurring while having celiac disease. Some celiacs go through different "stages" of the disease depending on their age, so certain symptoms can disappear while others newly appear. Also, the severity of reactions can decrease after the intestines heal. If you believe he has been gluten free, then there has to be another explanation for the loose stools and stomach pain. By the way, I commend all parents who care enough about their children to examine their health problems carefully. This did not happen to me at all (in fact, I was completely brushed aside), so I am in a bad state now.

[Guest Lucy]

I agree with the growth thing. My son has always been a "bigger" boy. Even before diagnosis of celiac. He too had damage of villi and was completely asymptomatic.