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Need help from mamas who have gone through elimination diets and dairy and/or gluten allergies:)

567 views 12 replies 5 participants last post by  mytwomonkies 
#1 ·
Hello mamas, I am really struggling here and would appreciate any feedback or ideas/advice you may have. I posted this in Life with a Babe a week ago but I am thinking that maybe some of you might have ideas too. Thanks for reading, I know it's long:)

My son (just about 11 months) has had frequent mucousy stools and diarrhea for the past two months. Before that he was eating a variety of finger foods (fruits and veg, egg yolk, toast, yogurt, cheese, chicken, cheerios...) and didn't seem to have any reactions to anything and he always had fairly normal breastmilk poops with chunks of food visible. In Feb, he had a bout of diarrhea that lasted about two weeks and caused a horrific diaper rash as well. His stool smelled so foul I can't even describe it and about 5 days into it, his breath started to smell like that too - just rotten and foul and not right at all. Since then it has come and gone but mostly it has stuck around. He will have the odd bowel movement that looks normal, but usually he will have diarrhea everyday at some point and it always smells really strange and rotten - not like any poop I've ever smelled. His breath continues to smell weird although not as bad as before and it comes and goes. He has also started to spit up which he never did even as a young baby. Usually the first bm of the day is huge and then all day it's small amounts almost every two hours. His sleep has really been disrupted because it seems that he gets very bad gas from the late evening (9:30 ish) all night long until he finally poops anywhere between 3 am and 7am. Even when he was breastfed around the clock he never pooped at night. He will wake screaming and won't relax to let me bicycle his legs or massage his tummy. He still nurses at night although when he's so gassy he doesn't even want to do that, he just squirms and cries. He will eventually fall back asleep only to wake up soon after. In the crib or in bed with me it's the same thing - waking up screaming.

I live in a remote northern Canadian community that is only accessed by winter road or plane. We have no hospital. There is a health centre staffed by nurses, a nurse practitioner (on mat leave right now) and a rotation of Drs in town one week a month. The nurses are mostly new and young and underexperienced in my opinion. I saw the Dr. today and he basically made me feel shitty for giving my son too many foods. I did try to wait to the four days to see if he had reactions but since he was having random diarrhea it didn't seem to correlate with anything new. In hindsight I probably should have slowed down and not been so eager to let him try new foods. He still nurses alot and is a huge baby (25 lbs at 11 months)

The Dr. suggested that I eliminate all dairy, most fruit (just some banana) and only feed him rice, veggies and meats for the next two months (I forgot to ask about eggs and beans) The doctor kind of rushed me and i didn't feel like I could get a word in edgewise or ask all my ?s. I feel kind of bad for my son because he loves the taste of yogurt and cheese and toast and we are going home for holiday for 5 weeks and I invisioned him having his first icecream cone and birthday cake:( Neither of us is getting any sleep and I hate to hear him scream when he wakes up and be in pain in the middle of the night. Part of me wonders if the wakings are more a behavioural thing, if he's just needy and screams immediately upon waking so he'll get my attention. I am constantly second guessing myself and my attachement parenting choices lately because I wonder if I am causing all of this myself and if I just gave him jarred baby food from the beginning or let him cry or a million other things...things would be different.

He is usually a happy baby during the day and is very active and meeting all his milestones. He's close to walking and he babbles like crazy and loves kids and animals. He doesn't seem bothered by gas in the daytime and he seems healthy otherwise.

Basically my questions are:

1. Should I also eliminate dairy, fruits and gluten since he is getting most of his nurtition from breastmilk?

2. I was kind of hoping to start night weaning at a year (or at least from the time I go to bed until 6 am-ish) but now I am afraid he won't have enough calories or nutrients. Should I be giving him a calcium supplement or fortified rice milk or something during the day?

3. Do milk or gluten intolerances just start out of the blue at 9 months old or could it have been triggered by the rotavirus?

Thanks so much ladies! It's sort of sad that I couldn't take the time to ask the dr. all these questions and he didn't give me a referrel to a pediatrician at this point, but I feel like I might be able to get some insight from other mamas who have gone through similar things. Thanks!!!!!
 
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#2 ·
I would start with a good strong probiotic for both of you. I would also cut dairy, egg and soy to start from both of your diets to see how things work out (3-4 weeks though some see results much faster). IF after that you see an improvement, you can try to reintroduce one thing at a time and maybe give it a week to be sure things are normal". If there is no improvement try to remove gluten and see if that gets you anywhere.

If all this started out of the blue, I would be more inclined to think that it was a tummy bug and the probiotics may help a lot.

Again, this is not medical advice at all just what I would do as a Mom.

Good luck!
 
#3 ·
I know about yogurt with probiotics but not much else. Are they drops? Do you have a favourite?

It did start out of the blue but the only reason I don't think it's a bug is that neither myself, his dad or the two little girls that I babysit part time have picked it up and it has lasted two months.

Thanks for the input:)
 
#4 ·
My first thought is gluten but that's coming from a mother of two gluten intolerant little girls :p A lot of times a gluten intolerance will cause other food intolerances as well. And yes, they can just start out of the blue...it's typically from some sort of environmental trigger (I'm not a doctor and this is just my personal opinion but I believe the rotavirus vax was what triggered my DD2's reactions at 2 months). I think the advice to just try a diet of rice, meat, and very limited fruits and veggies is good advice, unless you're wanting to do any kind of testing (celiac testing, allergy testing, etc.) in that case you should wait until after any testing to try altering the diet. Once you see improvements in your LO you can SLOWLY start adding things back in starting with least allergenic foods and saving things like eggs, soy, dairy, and gluten (including oats) for last. I'm sure you're already aware of this but if you're still nursing you too would need to stick to the same restricted diet. It is tough but it's what I did with DD2, once you have a happy child back it doesn't seem so hard anymore :) Hope this helps!
 
#7 ·
Oh yeah I totally thought it was a bug at first too but then when it has persisted for two months and he has never had a fever or seemed rundown or vomited and no one else has gotten sick - I wondered if it was something else. Someone else said to me that sometimes a flu or something can cause that disruption and then other intolerances develop. Thanks ladies!!
 
#8 ·
I also wondered about bananas...I have pears so I'll give that a go. I just baked us a spaghetti squash and he loves butternut squash. Any suggestions on veggies you would avoid? I am going to have such a hard time with this myself as I eat way too much bread and dairy but at least I might shed those last few pounds and be a lot healthier. My main problem is that I am so limited in the meat and produce I can buy here as everything needs to be shipped by air and we just have the basics, chicken and beef and then all kinds of packaged stuff that I would not feed to ds. I can make a private order for a pretty penny though - what sort of lamb did you buy? Thanks again and sorry for asking so many ?s
 
#10 ·
How was his infancy etc? My son was extremely colicky and fussy as an infant. He also seemed fine during the day but had a hard time sleeping-lots of gas, reflux, etc. He was also a big boy at 19pounds at 6months. We also had issues with the sweaty head, smelling breath and smelly poop. AND he is gluten intolerant confirmed through a very easy lab test that our Naturopathic Dr suggested we do. Yes, I also had to give up gluten because I was nursing him. For the smelly breath etc: we gave him a dose of homeopathic Cal Carb (google it)- and it helped tremendously. I believe the ND was very sure he needed this remedy and so we did a strength of 200c....and it would last a month or so before we'd have to repeat. The gluten intolerance test was a simple at home stool test that I had to mail to the lab. www.enterolab.com We also tested his genes with that test and it came back that he has the celiac genes. I then got tested and guess what.....I am gluten intolerant and have celiac genes (one the same as my son and the others different but still celiac genes)-I had no idea but I had stomach issues for years prior.
 
#11 ·
The weird thing is that everything was fine until he got sick in early Feb. He was fine when he was exclusively nursed and I avoided nothing in my diet. He was good for the first month or two of solids as well and then after he got sick it all went to hell in a handbasket. It would be so much easier to just start with dairy. He has improved with just dairy removed and I am at a loss for what to feed him for breakfast and snacks if I we go off eggs and gluten as well. He likes oatmeal and toast and I want him to have a balanced diet. It seems like brown rice is going to get old pretty quickly.
 
#12 ·
There was a really good list online that listed foods in order of least to most allergenic, I can't seem to find it :( Here's a list from Sears that I found just by googling "allergenic foods list" http://www.askdrsears.com/html/4/t041800.asp

Broccoli was a huge one that we had to avoid but she is fine with it now. I would think an 11 month old wouldn't have as many problems with fruits and veggies as a baby though so you might not have to be as limited on those. I just bought the lamb they had at our local grocery store, it was just natural ground lamb. If you only have access to chicken and beef I would definitely go with the chicken, it's less allergenic than beef. I hope your son gets to feeling better soon!!
 
#13 ·
Hmmm...maybe you could just try gluten next then and see if that helps any more. Avoiding gluten is actually way easier than dairy in my opinion. If you can just get a good gluten free flour mix you can pretty much make anything gluten free. Even Bisquick makes a gluten free mix!
 
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