Testing

[Mumtobooboo]

Hi

My daughter is now 3 and a half and ever since we started weaning she would be uncomfortable during and after eating. As she was our first I didn't do anything about this, putting it down to feeding issues. This has continued and now she will lie on the floor wriggling in discomfort, this will be for about 20 mins and happens 2-3 times a day. She says she is doing stretches to make her tummy ache go away. She also suffers from severe tantrums, ( I know all 2-3 yrs suffer but hers are extreme 1 hr plus) we have had help from the hv but I feel these are linked to her tummy pains. Plus she is always very tired.

When she stopped wearing nappies at 2 she had problems doing poos, getting very constipated and in pain. She has now been on movicol for over a year. She now goes to poo daily but without it will be in a state.

I recently went to the drs about her tummy ache, and they agreed to blood tests for blood count, renal and coeliac (as my mum is). These all came back negative. She hadn't had any gluten in her food for prev 2 day but I guess it should have picked it up.

The dr has suggested removing dairy from her diet. I just wanted to know if exclusion was the best way to go about this or if they could just do tests for this. Also I had just assumed that I need to just exclude milk, butter, cheese etc, but from the thread I can see that I might need to look at biscuits etc.
Thanks for ny help
Clare

[freefrommum]

I would ask for a referral to a gastro specialist before you start excluding anything from her diet. Given the symptoms you describe and the family history I would suggest pursuing the possibility of coeliac disease. False negatives are quite common with the blood test but there are other tests that can be done to be sure. Here's a link to the NICE guidelines: publications.nice.org.uk/coeliac-disease-cg86/guidance see in particular point 1.1.18
Whatever you do, don't exclude gluten until you've seen a specialist as the tests won't be accurate if your child isn't eating gluten regularly. Good luck.