10 days of watery diarrhea - next step?

[LaurieG]

Background, since I don't post here much anymore:

DD is severely intolerant of soy, and to a lesser extent dairy. We also have long suspected something else is going on because she often had loose stools even without dairy or soy in her diet. About a year ago we did IgG testing because food journaling and various eliminations were not revealing anything. The testing showed Soy was a 3 (no surprise), some dairy products were a 1 while others didn't test positive at all, and a few other things came up as a 1 including wheat, catelope, and most of the legumes they tested her for (I blame the soy on this). So we eliminated all of those things for 3 months (Jan - March) and really didn't see any change in her stool patterns. My theory became that the loose stools were more a function of her overall health than any particular food - whenever her system was stressed by an illness or something else her stools were loose. Most of the time just unformed - rarely did we see frequent watery diarrhea. Occassionally last winter and spring we saw traces of blood, always when she was sick rather than after a soy or milk exposure. So I slowly added everything back in (except milk and soy) and still no change. After a bad bout of sinus and ear infections that wouldn't clear up in April she was on augmentin for 10 days. I countered with doubling her probiotic and suddenly, after the augmentin was over, her stools were formed!

So all summer she's been healthy and her stools have been pretty much formed - just occassionally loose for a day or 2 and I blamed traces of milk or soy because we aren't really that dilligent about products that are produced around her known triggers.

So a few weeks ago I decided to trial dairy. (This happened to coincide with leaving her multivitamin and mineral where we were staying on vacation, so we haven't had it since) I started by eating some myself. All my trials seemed to go without a reaction. Finally I went out with DH and had tons of dairy - Lobster with butter, mushrooms with cheese and butter, potato with butter and sour cream. DD had a little bit of more frequent stools (still formed) but really no obvious reaction. So the next week (8/19) we gave her a little bit of vanilla yogurt. She hardly ate any. Then next day she started having 6 or more watery diarrheas a day and that has continued nearly every day since. She also came down with a nasty cold which she is just on the tail end of now. I think the dairy caused the initial diarrhea, but did it cause the cold too? Or is the cold causing the diarrhea now? I'm not sure how it all fits together but I really need to get it to stop at this point. Her little bottom is getting raw and lots of other things concern me about it going on this long.

So, any ideas for how to get it to stop? I'm thinking at this point her system isn't still reacting to the dairy, right? So waiting it out doesn't seem like the best option.

Here are my thoughts: 1. Call the GI dr and see if they can give her something. 2. Try eliminating the foods that came up positive on her testing, in case she's in a highly sensitive state right now. 3. Obviously get her back on her vitamins ASAP, but we're a little cash poor for the next few weeks and buying them isn't in the budget. I really don't want to use the credit card if I don't have to.

Other ideas?

[kjbrown92]

My son's soy reaction is 10 days, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was still the milk. Have you tried Bentonite Clay? That's helped stop a reaction in my DS. Also, what do you mean by a "cold". As in, she's congested? Or full blown cold that's sneezing, coughing, fever, congestion, etc.? Because if it's more along the lines of congestion/post nasal drip, it could still definitely be the milk.

[LaurieG]

It just surprises me that she would have such a violent reaction to milk after all of our experiences over the past 12-18 months have led us to believe milk was not a real severe intolerance, or that she was improving in that regard. A 10 day reaction to soy wouldn't surprise me that much.

It's definitely a full blown cold with cough, sneezing, mucus, etc. Other family members have gotten it, too, so there's definitely a virus going around our home. But the timing of it is extremely suspicious, since we had all been very healthy all summer and I'm not aware of DD being exposed to any sick recently.

[kjbrown92]

But what it could mean is that YOU are getting better, therefore the food isn't leaking into your milk, so it doesn't bother her through you. It's just that when you gave it to her directly that it affected her. In which case, it's still a good sign in one respect.

[LaurieG]

Well, that would be something positive.

In any case, she's getting better. Poops are still loose and gassy but not watery any more and only a few a day instead of 8 or 10. The cold is better too, so I still don't know if it was dairy running its course or the cold, or both. I guess I'll be avoiding dairy awhile longer.