Tell me about oily stool and food sensitivities

[Squrrl]

I've been avoiding posting because I feel like this is too large and complex an issue for me to really put it all into a coherent post, but I'm not finding much of anything useful online and the only doctor I have a remotely trusting relationship with is on vacation for a couple of weeks yet, so I'll try.

Okay, "the beginning" is probably about a year ago when our doctor suggested trying an elimination diet to help with my assorted health problems and we found that both I and my now 3 1/2 year old daughter are gluten intolerant.  We opted to just eliminate gluten rather than continuing with ill health to undergo a frustrating and potentially unhelpful round of testing, but since neither of us really had gastrointestinal symptoms to speak of, I've been assuming that it's a non-celiac intolerance.  I recognize that that isn't exactly a scientific analysis.

Fast forward to two months ago when my son was born.  I was very alert for possible food sensitivities after our experience with our daughter (mainly, she had extreme difficulty sleeping and was chronically sleep deprived--as were the rest of us, of course), so when he started getting fussier and congested with darkish green poop at a couple weeks old, I took out dairy as being the usual most likely suspect.  He improved for a couple of weeks, so I challenged dairy and the symptoms returned.  I took it out, he improved again, and I briefly thought I had the problem licked.  But then a couple of weeks later, the symptoms returned--congestion, fussier, screaming all afternoon and early evening sometimes, poop so dark green it looks like the "jungle green" crayon in the Crayola box, and occasional burgundy streaks and dots in his poop--blood.  Also, his baby acne kept getting worse instead of better, and scaly spots started to develop on his cheeks and forehead.  So I called the doctor and made an appointment that, as noted, won't be for over a week yet, and we took the entire top eight allergens out of my diet (augh!!!).  His face started clearing after only a few days, and his poop lightened back to a mustard/lightish green, with no blood that I've noticed, and less fussiness for the last couple of days (Thank goodness!). 

But NOW I see perhaps the scariest thing yet--his poop is now definitely oily.  Sometimes it's like an oily sheen, sometimes it's got big streaks of oil like the top of a pot of chicken broth.  All I can pester out of the internet so far is that this is a sign of malabsorption of nutrients, often associated with either cystic fibrosis or celiac.  I confess, since I didn't even know what CS was 'til now, and it's clearly not a family problem, I haven't felt very worried about that possibility.  Celiac?  I don't know...I mean, does that even make sense, given that I don't eat gluten?  I mean, my reaction isn't severe, so I haven't been super-fussy about possible cross-contamination, say, but still, pretty much zero gluten during his whole gestation and life to date.

Does anyone have any good websites/book recommendations/personal experiences that might shed light on this?  Like so many of us, I feel like I'm dealing with way too much information with way too little help, and it seems like every time I get things moving in the right direction, a new problem crops up.

[Squrrl]

I tried to be concise but I just left out too much.  I guess my problem is that neither of the "usual suspects" makes any sense.  He has no other symptoms of cystic fibrosis, and I really don't see how he can possibly have symptoms of celiac--even if, in theory, he HAS it--if he's never had gluten.  But I can't find anything talking about other reasons for oily feces--just the briefest of blurbs and "talk to your doctor".

I also forgot to mention that he is a pretty spit-upp-ey baby, and several times he's had some pretty spectacular high volume projectile vomiting--well outside the range of "normal" spitting up.  And that symptom, at least, doesn't really seem to be improving--just yesterday, he did one that resulted in a total wardrobe change for both of us because my entire sleeve and his entire front were drenched--we're not talking oops, he cheesed a little here.  So there would seem to be something that either a) isn't a food intolerance at all or b) isn't in the top eight.

Augh.  I really don't want to spend years or put him through hell trying to figure this out.

[mytwomonkies]

I could have written your post myself when DD2 was a baby. She spit up, or probably more like vomited, after every feeding for the first couple months. Around 2 months she started with the green mucusy stool streaked with blood. I too started to eliminate foods, dairy was the first thing to go and then wheat (at that point I didn't really know much about gluten). Her symptoms improved quite a bit but she still was having issues. I stumbled upon the total elimination diet described by doctor sears and thought that was a good place to start. It wasn't until I eliminated everything but rice, squash and zuchini, olive oil, sea salt, and pears that she returned to normal. Eventually I found that she could tolerate lamb which was the only meat at the time she COULD tolerate. So for a few months I ate this for 3 meals a day (I'm really not joking) and when she had been doing good for a while I started VERY SLOWLY adding things back starting with fruits and vegetables.

Fast forward to when she was about 15 months and we started suspecting celiac with her then 2 1/2 year old sister. Sister tested negative for celiac but is a different child on a gluten free diet. DD2 is now 21 months and she has a rash that only appears when she's had gluten and it has all the characteristics of DH which is basically the skin form of celiac disease.

So, given the fact that there's already two of you that are gluten intolerant it's definitely possible that this is the main issue with your little one. As far as you being gluten free, if you're not super sensitive yourself you could be getting enough from cross contamination and hidden gluten where even though you're not reacting your little one could be. I would suggest trying mostly whole foods like fruits and veggies and meats, and really watch out for cross contamination and hidden gluten and see if that helps your little one.

Hope this helps!

[mytwomonkies]

Oh yeah, the spit up...is it projectile to the point of hitting someone if they're standing next to you? Projectile vomiting could be a whole nother issue so make sure to mention that at the doctor's visit.

Also, do you eat oats?

[Squrrl]

I don't eat oats, and the vast majority of the processed foods we eat (a relatively small part of our diet) are explicitly gluten-free.  About the only time there'd likely be an exposure would be if we eat out, where it would be a cross-contamination issue, but I don't even get, say, things that share cooking oil with gluten or probably do.  Of course, now we don't even eat out, because I've yet to meet the restaurant that's top eight safe.

The vomit varies in its...ahhh...range.  For example, we do EC, and the other day as I was holding him over the sink, he chucked up a load that was easily a quarter cup and completely cleared him and me to land in the sink (rather tidy, really), but sometimes if he's on his back in bed, say, it just burbles out like a fountain just under the surface of the water--but times like that, it can be a good estimated half-cup in volume.  Earlier today, the poor boy drenched himself with one that came, in part, out his nose.  He wasn't so happy about the nose thing.   But I would say it never goes more than, say, half a foot at most, usually much less.

I hope like hell that I don't have to go as severe as your elimination diet.  I know someone who was down to turkey, millet, and a vitamin for weeks, and eventually had to drop the vitamin.  Food is a huge part of my life, and I'm already chronically cranky and basically cry my way through the grocery store as it is.  I'm a pretty inventive cook, but I'm not sure my psyche can take much more.

[mytwomonkies]

I'm so sorry, I know it is hard!

This might be some good info, it has  a list of more/less allergenic foods  http://www.askdrsears.com/html/4/t041800.asp

Do you take any vitamins? If so you may want to stop taking them for a little while to see if that helps.

Some things we had problems with in the beginning (other than the top 8) were sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, quinoa, lentils, citrus, broccoli, brown rice (was fine with white jasmine rice),avocados, etc just to name a few. We still just use sea salt and pepper for seasoning, if I venture outside of that we seem to have problems. Me and my two daughters are all gluten intolerant and we've had gluten reactions to cross contamination in almond butter, gluten free flour, dried beans, gluten free tortillas, dried fruit, etc. I've gotten pretty good about checking the manufacturing practices of products before we eat it but sometimes we have slip ups. We've been having problems with even a lot of gluten free grains so we are pretty much grain free at the moment except for a little rice or rice flour here and there.