[thehappyhippo]

I'm not quite sure where to post this but hopefully this will do.

I am hoping that all of the collective knowledge on this site will help me come up with some ideas.

My poor 8 month old son is in pain. He has been having trouble sleeping since he was 2 months old. About this time is when he began developing a large number of allergies all though his dairy sensitivity was apparent from birth.

We are now gluten/dairy/egg/peanut/nut free and are waiting on some allergy RAST testing to decide if we will eliminate more foods. I was hoping that eliminating these foods would improve his sleep and his bowel movements but they have not. In fact, his sleep just keeps deteriorating.

Besides the obvious that his pain is still due to an allergen that I am eating I am looking for other ideas that could be causing his night pain. The fact that he is in pain is very clear. He groans and thrashes and cries out all with his eyes clenched closed. He does not immediately stop when I touch, hold, pick up, rock, nurse, etc. He will eventually settle down after I convince him to nurse but he doesn't want to nurse. We co-sleep so he is always right next to me.

For the longest time he would at least give us a 20-45 minute stretch and we felt blessed when he'd give us an hour or two but for the last week or so it has been more like 5-10 minutes with a 20-40 minute session if we're lucky. It's awful and heartbreaking.

The only other medical conditions I've considered are:

*an EGID: eosinophilic disorder that would be related to his allergies
*reflux: probably related to an allergen

other than intuitively feeling like it is something with his gut/digestion I don't know what it is. He has struggled with bowel movements since birth and chiropractic visits have helped (especially when he was first born) but it seems like they are still painful. He still has diarrhea (always has) and his poop is still greenish but no longer watery.

We're still working on identifying all of his allergies but I need to get him out of pain. I can not watch my baby go through this another night. It's awful. We're seeing his doctor tomorrow and I'm going to ask for something for reflux to use in the interim while we figure this out and find whatever the culprit is. If it works at least I know it is the pain of reflux making him cry.

I'm really open to hearing any and all ideas.

He was recommended to go on an elemental formula from our allergist but he refuses to take the formula. This is also the first month he's lost weight. He is seeming to want to nurse less and when he does nurse he doesn't want to nurse for long.

 

[LadyCatherine185]

It sounds like it could definitely be reflux.

mama, that sounds so hard. my DS has several allergies as well, and is just now growing out of horrible reflux that caused him to not nurse well (scream 10X each time he nursed) for weeks and weeks... Prevacid worked wonders for him.

have you tried gripe water? we used this for about 2 weeks for DS and it helped.. but stopped helping after 2 weeks. but at least he got a little relief!

i hope you get some stuff figured out soon! it definitely sounds like something is really wrong for your poor baby to be waking so much in so much pain.

 

[Unconventional1]

Have you done probiotics for him to help his gut?

 

[cdahlgrd]

Have you taken him to a ped? It could be an ear infection, teething, gerd, allergies, sore throat, etc. It is just really really hard to tell. Have you tried the formula in a sippy cup or with a straw?

But definitely follow your intuition and don't let this continue! Babies with ongoing pain have trouble bonding.

I also recommend probiotics in conjuction with everything else. I think it helped with my oldest's allergies.

Sorry mamma!! It is so hard dealing with all of these issues!

 

[thehappyhippo]

Yes, we are working with our naturopath on healing his gut (and mine) but we also have to be careful at this point since we are not sure of the extent of his allergies. We have a dairy free probiotic that he gets twice a day and also some Fish Oil and I just got some water kefir grains that we will be trying soon.

I tried cutting the probiotics and fish oil for a few days earlier this week just to make sure he wasn't reacting to those but I haven't seen any difference so we'll be reintroducing them.

We've also tried George's Aloe Vera Juice, gripe water and I even tried mylicon drops, tylenol and ibuprofen. Nothing works.

We went to the doc today and they'd like us to try using a low dose antihistamine before we try anything more invasive. Interestingly he had a fever of 99 but no other symptoms of illness.

So I gave him the antihistamine before his nap and he still woke 1/2 hour later. I finally got him back to sleep and we'll see how long he goes this time. I finally figured out how to get the elemental formula into him by mixing it with rice milk and I'm hoping that the Elecare will help us get to baseline so we can figure out what is going on. I just want my little guy to sleep without pain.

He went to the chiro today and his spine is definitely reacting to whatever this is. He was tighter than usual in the area that controls digestion.

I am not worried about his bonding, thank goodness. He is a very well bonded little guy and I am so very thankful for that. In fact most the health care professionals we see blow me off because he is such a happy smiley kind of baby. He's got the most wonderful personality. They don't believe me that he cries all night.

: They think I exaggerate.