Went to DR today for 4yo ds with stomach aches

[MissSJ]

My youngest son, 4yo, has been having a lot of stomach aches for the past month and a half/2 months.  He definitely was getting stomach aches after eating cheese so we cut out cheese and milk.  I have to be honest I wasn't being very diligent reading labels though.  After stopping the milk and cheese he was still getting the stomach aches, for example one day for lunch he had pb&j on a tortilla.  I have been concerned about this in conjunction with leg pain he has been having so we went to the Dr. today.

Our regular Dr. just closed his doors so this was our first visit at a new practice and we saw a nurse practitioner.  She believes he may have acid reflux and wants to rule it out so she prescribed him pepcid to take 30  minutes before breakfast each morning (which will be a nightmare because he always wants to eat immediately!).  She wants us to cut out all dairy for a week, then remove gluten the next week.  She also wants us to keep a food diary and to come back after two weeks.

Though she reassured me that pepcid doesn't have any side effects I am still concerned about giving it to ds.  Now that I am home and thinking about it I am also curious what causes acid reflux and why not do an elimination diet before the medication.  If I remember correctly I think she wanted to rule out the reflux right away.  There is also concern that this problem could be related to his small size - he is 4 1/2, 37" and 26 lbs.  

Opinions?

SJ

[kjbrown92]

I'm replying here instead of the Allergies forum because I'm too lazy to go back there. Though I agree with what Jessica wrote as a reply on that forum. Personally I wouldn't do the reflux and the elimination at the same time either, or you have too many variables. Definitely keep a food journal, down to ingredient level (with all symptoms). My DS had leg pain with dairy and potatoes. So they can definitely be related. Are they saying to take out dairy the first week then add it back in and remove gluten? Or take dairy out the first week then dairy and gluten the second week?

For my kids, it's variable how long they react. From 24 hours to 10 days, so there is definitely a wide range. Our doctor said my DS's leg pains were growing pains and not to worry about them. Ibuprofin did nothing for them. One night I gave him gripe water (chamomile, fennel, and ginger, meant for stomach issues) and the leg pains went right away. That's when I decided the leg pain was food related, and not growing pains. He's 10yo and he's only ever had them related to food (and now lyme disease die-off). So I'm wondering if there really are such a thing as growing pains.