Please, we really need help

[mama9]

I will post here a link dedicated to our issues, but right now we need your help fast. This issue may get lost in our 'about us' thread.

DS has had VERY runny poop for a good 3 weeks now. I'm talking projectile with some bloody mucous. I chalked the runny poop down to the fact that it coincided with DS cutting 2 of his first teeth and the blood due to the dairy trial (a little ghee to fry food in, but that was 3 weeks ago). The blood has just returned.

We've been free from gluten, dairy, corn, egg, soy, we are currently low sals, amines, we just put eggs back in, one every 4 days, also rotating some fish as he couldn't tolerate that in the past either, we can't do any lentils or beans, no ferments, nuts and seeds cause issues too. I am exclusively breastfeeding him and everything is happening through my milk.

I saw the poop and blood today and I can't take this anymore. I need answers and I need to know what is wrong with my baby.

He is VERY uncomfortable, very unsettled. He is smiley most of the time but is at his worse in the mornings and at night.

All of his RAST tests came up negative for any allergies to a large range of foods. I can't even get his allergist and ped on the phone to discuss the results (we use a state hospital). They both want me to wean him on to Neocate.

I am trying supps today, I have in my stash, mag, mo, a good B complex and vitamin C. Will be ordering some D and K2 this weekend.

Please mamas, advise me on how to help my little boy (mamafish has been a lifeline for us so far - thank you so much). I'm TERRIFIED of elemental formulas because DS reacted very badly when I trialed coconut oil in my diet and also to corn. I don't think he will be able to tolerate the MSG in the Nutrimigen AA and I am starting to get very scared. I can't be healthy or well on our current diet, let alone eliminate anything else. We have no fats that he can tolerate - none. Mamafish suggested that I look into mitochondrial issues. I want to do that except I am dealing with docs that have a hard time believing that DS has any food sensitivities to begin with. I don't know where to start or how to continue with our search for his health. Our ped is great and understands but she is pushing for Neocate because of my health mainly. Allergist is pushing for Neocate because he thinks I can't sustain DS on my milk due to my diet and his age, but this is a whole different debate (he's only 7 months old), just thought I'd tell you who I'm dealing with.

I can't stand seeing him so uncomfortable, I am eating so little and seeing blood tinged mucous in his runny poop is like my last straw before having a hysterical break down. I will keep it together of course, but I am depressed from this and I want this bleeding to stop dammit.

Any advice will be welcome and is sorely needed. We have to move house over the next 7 days, DH is abroad, I'm on my own doing everything - it's madness - but I just want my DS to be well.

Thanks you so much mamas!
xxxxx

[babygirlie]

I'm sorry We have/had poo issues too. I know magnesium causes diareah.

Even though my baby is allergic to milk (it causes constipation) I have had to add it in to stop the diareah which she would have elsewise. It's this huge balancing act to get it just right.

I now give her baby yogurt and cheese and still give her the Allimentum formula (an allergy type formula out there that has predigested milk protien. This was the only one she tolerated).

The blood could be from a fissure or hemmeroid but you should tell the doctor there is blood. My girl had blood too but it was from constipation, but you can get these things from the opposite diareah also. Bloods not good but it's not necessarily some horrible disease either.

Maybe you should hold off on all the vitamins and just eat bland with yogurt probiotics. I know you don't want solids but if you are inclined maybe try some plain baby yogurt. I didn't do solids either for a long time. I can't remember now but it was past the 6 month mark that's popular.

Definately keep him hydrated whatever you do!

I still struggle. I don't like giving her cow milk and what nots but looks like I might have to. She just had an explosion her dad said so I better get the evil cow milk :/ Either I suck at this or she's just like me. I have fissures up the wazoo also ugh.

[babygirlie]

btw what is mo?

[ktgrok]

have you considered a foremilk/hindmilk issue?

[SpottedFoxx]

Wow - that's a lot to deal with. I see you are in the UK. There is a wonderful allergist who does a lot with children in Spain. Dr. Luis Escribano. He works with a rare disease called mastocytosis which is allergic in nature. He has also done some amazing research with allergies & autism. It's a long shot but maybe drop him an email [e-mail]

[mamafish9]

I just PMed a mama who knows lots about mito issues, hopefully she will have some thoughts for you.

[eternamariposa]

This could be reaching since it is so natural for us to always see things through our own experiences but maybe it will help.

To me when I hear that the baby can't handle starches and dairy among other things that are more rare allergies like coconut, it makes me think of leaky gut issues for Both of you. With my son we had enormous trouble with belly problems and weight gain in his early months because of things I was eating that my own leaky gut was not fully processing and breaking down which meant that large undigested proteins were getting to him, same thing happens with my little girl now, and our outcome has always been really bad yeast rashes. Full on running stools or constipation, TONS of gas and a gurgling belly, sometimes diaper rashes that were raised and textured or even bleeding. Nothing made sense to me and things seemed really bad. Once my son was weaned, I found that he could totally handle small amounts of dairy on his own. My little girl even ate a small amount of ghee on her green beans with no upset. BUT if I eat those things my stomach gets all bloated and sluggish and then she gets all those symptoms. Yeast in the gut makes for wicked gassiness and irritability around these parts. I remember wondering if I should take my son to the ER a few times from the way his belly would gurgle and how he would scream. And like another poster said, if there is an oversupply/overactive let down issue, resolving that with block feeding is always helpful too.

So in my personal experience leaky guts are the problem. I have read some studies-controversial to a certain extent-that claim that when a mother has a deficiency of friendly gut bacterias in her own body that she may struggle passing on sufficient friendly bacterias to her children through her milk and supplementation of those bacterias may be neccessary for both mother and baby-particulary when you take into account how nursing and pregnancy hormonal shifts are so disruptive to the gut anyway.

I frequent http://heal-thyself.ning.com/ and I have had GREAT results so far following her foods for healing protocol. And so far I don't even do everything on the list. But KEFIR is very, very helpful. I use cocounut kefir but they make cows milk and goats milk kefir to or you can even make your own at home. It is way more effective than pill form probiotics.

I really think it may be worth looking into getting some high quality infant probiotics to swab in your lo's mouth and get yourself on some immune boosters-I always have great luck with EmergenC immune booster that has echinechea it is the ruby red lemon one I believe-and start having kefir everyday, with as many of the other healing items on the list at the link I posted. And watch for reactions in yourself as well as your little one.

I hope this will be helpful for you and that things will get better soon.

[mama9]

Originally Posted by mamafish9

I just PMed a mama who knows lots about mito issues, hopefully she will have some thoughts for you.

Thank you so very much mamafish - I spoke to the doc today about it and he didn't have much to say, just that if DS is on the curve and not FTT then mito issues may not be present, but he didn't sound too sure of himself. He was trying to be helpful though. We had to use pain relief for DS today. It seems to have kicked in.

[mama9]

I'll be back to reply everybody, I just need to settle DS to sleep...thanks so much xx

[MomtoHannah]

I think you should try an infant probiotic -- bifidobacterium infantis. There are several brands of this. You may be able to find one that does not contain the allergens you are trying to avoid. You would give this probiotic directly to your baby. You can mix it with breastmilk.

[mamafish9]

Originally Posted by mama9

Thank you so very much mamafish - I spoke to the doc today about it and he didn't have much to say, just that if DS is on the curve and not FTT then mito issues may not be present, but he didn't sound too sure of himself. He was trying to be helpful though. We had to use pain relief for DS today. It seems to have kicked in.

Oy. Is he still on the curve? (Maybe not with recent issues, and maybe you can use that to push). I'd push as hard as you can for a referral to someone who knows plenty about mito issues.

[mama9]

Originally Posted by mamafish9

Oy. Is he still on the curve? (Maybe not with recent issues, and maybe you can use that to push). I'd push as hard as you can for a referral to someone who knows plenty about mito issues.

I haven't weighed him for a month now so I will go weigh him at the clinic on Tuesday (they do Tue & Thur). I will be very surprised if he is still on the curve due to the recent issues, as you said, and if it turns out that he is not on the curve I will def push hard with them. Thanks so much for the mito tip.

[Theloose]

I'm going to second looking at yourself. Have you tested *you* for reactive foods? There are a bunch of foods that gave dd bloody poop as a baby/toddler through my milk. Now she can eat them with no obvious issues, but if I eat them, ds reacts the same way. Ds also gets the same bloody poop from things like me increasing pancreatic enzymes - I think it has to do with me reacting and dumping toxic stuff (free radicals?) into my milk. The stuff you're avoiding is pretty similar to our list. Some trigger foods for us that I didn't see on your list are all stone fruit (peaches, apricots, cherries, etc), potatoes, and sorghum.

[mama9]

Originally Posted by babygirlie

I'm sorry We have/had poo issues too. I know magnesium causes diareah.

Even though my baby is allergic to milk (it causes constipation) I have had to add it in to stop the diareah which she would have elsewise. It's this huge balancing act to get it just right.

Have you found any other foods that have caused your baby's stool to thicken? Perhaps in your food journal if you have been doing one in the past? It could be that although you are balancing foods to get the poo more balanced in consistency, that adding dairy whilst she is still allergic to it may delay her healing. Just a thought that came to mind.

I now give her baby yogurt and cheese and still give her the Allimentum formula (an allergy type formula out there that has predigested milk protien. This was the only one she tolerated).

How is she doing on the Allimentum? We don't have that brand in the UK but we have Neocate and Nutrimigen AA which I think are similar to Allimentum as in they are elemental formulas with 'free' amino acids.

The blood could be from a fissure or hemmeroid but you should tell the doctor there is blood. My girl had blood too but it was from constipation, but you can get these things from the opposite diareah also. Bloods not good but it's not necessarily some horrible disease either.

You are so right about that. I had a thought that it could be just from the 3 weeks of prolonged diarrhea and not necessarily to a food I'm eating or that something terribly serious is going on. Still it is so scary!

Maybe you should hold off on all the vitamins and just eat bland with yogurt probiotics. I know you don't want solids but if you are inclined maybe try some plain baby yogurt. I didn't do solids either for a long time. I can't remember now but it was past the 6 month mark that's popular.

I haven't taken the vitamins during this diarrhea episode over the past 3 weeks as they arrived in the post just yesterday. I started with one dose of mag. So it's a mystery to me why the runs started, apart from the teething. I've been eating pretty blandly for a while now and unfortunately yogurt is not an option for us as dairy in any form, even from probiotics raised on dairy will only cause DS more bleeding. Even dairy free probiotics caused a huge problem but it has FOS which I now understand has been a problem for many babes here. I guess it boils down to how sensitive your babe is to dairy. It's great that you are able to give your babe some yogurt - I sure wish I could!! My mother keeps bugging me about giving DS solids and thinks his problems are due to the fact that he is starving because I'm not giving him solids . We are at 7 months and 1 week now and I can't see solids happening in the next while either. He was very keen a few months ago but now he doesn't care for any of it! Probably a good thing right now to be honest.

Definately keep him hydrated whatever you do!

He gets bf plenty - almost hourly, does plenty of pees...

I still struggle. I don't like giving her cow milk and what nots but looks like I might have to. She just had an explosion her dad said so I better get the evil cow milk :/ Either I suck at this or she's just like me. I have fissures up the wazoo also ugh.

You poor thing! I hope she feels better and it sounds like you are doing an awesome job. Thanks so much for your advice and for sharing xxx

[mama9]

Originally Posted by babygirlie

btw what is mo?

Molybdenum - I bought it in 'drops' form.

[Theloose]

Oh yeah, have you tested for rotavirus? Dd had that at 5mo, on top of the increasing reactions all with the same blood/mucus/watery diarrhea symptoms.

Are you getting enough vitamin A for healing the gut lining?

[mama9]

Originally Posted by ktgrok

have you considered a foremilk/hindmilk issue?

Hi, yes I did consider this a while back since he was newly born. I have been block feeding him since birth and he only ever wants one boob at a time. I've been journalling and doing EDs over the past 7 months and have pretty much seen that what I eat is the biggest factor in his symptoms. fm/hm could still very well be a part of the issue and I will keep that in my mind. Thanks xx

[mama9]

Originally Posted by SpottedFoxx

Wow - that's a lot to deal with. I see you are in the UK. There is a wonderful allergist who does a lot with children in Spain. Dr. Luis Escribano. He works with a rare disease called mastocytosis which is allergic in nature. He has also done some amazing research with allergies & autism. It's a long shot but maybe drop him an email [e-mail]

Thanks so much! I will most definitely get an email out to him and I'll let you know if he replies xx

[mama9]

Originally Posted by eternamariposa

This could be reaching since it is so natural for us to always see things through our own experiences but maybe it will help.

I appreciate it!

To me when I hear that the baby can't handle starches and dairy among other things that are more rare allergies like coconut, it makes me think of leaky gut issues for Both of you. With my son we had enormous trouble with belly problems and weight gain in his early months because of things I was eating that my own leaky gut was not fully processing and breaking down which meant that large undigested proteins were getting to him, same thing happens with my little girl now, and our outcome has always been really bad yeast rashes. Full on running stools or constipation, TONS of gas and a gurgling belly, sometimes diaper rashes that were raised and textured or even bleeding. Nothing made sense to me and things seemed really bad.

I attempted to do a healing on my leaky gut and for DS. I suspected this a few months back and went to a kinesiologist. He also thought we both had leaky gut, with DS having it worse than me. I took some supps for a while to help heal the gut and did the SCD at the same time. I got a lot of insight from your post. DS had all of those symptoms too.

Once my son was weaned, I found that he could totally handle small amounts of dairy on his own. My little girl even ate a small amount of ghee on her green beans with no upset. BUT if I eat those things my stomach gets all bloated and sluggish and then she gets all those symptoms.

Now this blows my mind because I wondered if this could be a possibility. I'm obviously afraid to give him dairy because he gets bleeding from dairy in bm, but I wouldn't be surprised (and at the same time be totally surprised!!) if he could tolerate a little dairy directly. Got no plans to trial him any time soon though, but I do wonder. All of these issues made me realise just how many issues I have myself .

Yeast in the gut makes for wicked gassiness and irritability around these parts. I remember wondering if I should take my son to the ER a few times from the way his belly would gurgle and how he would scream. And like another poster said, if there is an oversupply/overactive let down issue, resolving that with block feeding is always helpful too.

Yes, they know my DS by his first name at our local A&E

So in my personal experience leaky guts are the problem. I have read some studies-controversial to a certain extent-that claim that when a mother has a deficiency of friendly gut bacterias in her own body that she may struggle passing on sufficient friendly bacterias to her children through her milk and supplementation of those bacterias may be neccessary for both mother and baby-particulary when you take into account how nursing and pregnancy hormonal shifts are so disruptive to the gut anyway.

I have to go and re-check my probiotics. I bought 2 really expensive probiotics by BioCare that were dairy free. Didn't work out. I think it's the FOS in his one, but I need to check what is in my one. Perhaps soon I will revisit them but he's too sensitive to deal with them right now I think. I feel so bad that my body was such a mess to make bfing such an issue for DS!

I frequent http://heal-thyself.ning.com/ and I have had GREAT results so far following her foods for healing protocol. And so far I don't even do everything on the list. But KEFIR is very, very helpful. I use cocounut kefir but they make cows milk and goats milk kefir to or you can even make your own at home. It is way more effective than pill form probiotics.

I like that site but haven't lurked there, I've just read a few threads. I will def go back and revisit. Kefir with raw dairy was a huge fail for us. In fact DS can't take any ferments at all, which is why I suspect we have an issue with amines. I wish I could do ferments - I adore sauerkraut for example.

I really think it may be worth looking into getting some high quality infant probiotics to swab in your lo's mouth and get yourself on some immune boosters-I always have great luck with EmergenC immune booster that has echinechea it is the ruby red lemon one I believe-and start having kefir everyday, with as many of the other healing items on the list at the link I posted. And watch for reactions in yourself as well as your little one.

Will need to research and buy some FOS/dairy free probiotics and start slowly with it. EmergenC is great, I used to depend on that when I was in the States, but with our current salicylate issues I am staying away from that particular brand. I ordered some allergen free vit c powder (sodium ascorbate) so that should help kick our immunity, with some zinc that I have left over from Nutricology/Allergy Research Group. Maybe we will do so well on supps that we can revisit the kefir experience again.

I hope this will be helpful for you and that things will get better soon.

Thanks ever so much! xxx

[mama9]

Originally Posted by MomtoHannah

I think you should try an infant probiotic -- bifidobacterium infantis. There are several brands of this. You may be able to find one that does not contain the allergens you are trying to avoid. You would give this probiotic directly to your baby. You can mix it with breastmilk.

Right, I did give him this (dairy free) but it was cultured on FOS and he didn't tolerate it. I need to find another one and I love the tip to mix with bm, thanks so much xxx