Are these 'symptoms' related ...

[Frontstep]

... or are they just a lot of minor unconnected things?

DD is 10. She's not 'unwell' but she suffers from a bunch of quite annoying and sometimes pretty uncomfortable things, including:

Large quantity, really runny and smelly poos - difficult for her to manage on her own.

Dry itchy skin - on legs, arms, tummy and back, different places on different days. Not much to see in terms of rash. Taking anti histamine seems to help a bit with this.

Almost continuous snotty nose (not unwell with a cold, just constantly bunged up).

Had bad enuresis till about a year ago - seems hopefully to have now grown out of that. Still sometimes very little warning of needing a wee during the day.

She seems to be always hungry and has quite a large round tummy (rest of her less so) - she does enjoy food but she doesn't eat loads of rubbish.

Occasional migraine type headaches or tummy pains - no obvious pattern.

Frequent sort of 'night terror' type incidents - awake but not aware she is awake if you know what I mean.

She seems to be a bit more thirsty too recently, don't know if that's relevant. And she has some tongue ulcers.

Writing all this down together makes it sounds terrible! We have seen the GP about some of these issues individually but guess I'm wondering whether they are interrelated. Wondered for example about food intolerances - except does the weight gain not fit with that?? Might these things settle down at puberty? Or should I go back and be more insistent with the GP?

Anyway just wondered if wise MNers might see something obvious that we can't!
Thanks!

[Babymamamama]

Could you get her some pro and pre biotic supplements? From somewhere like whole foods? Sounds like she might have a gut imbalance which can affect your immunity. Meantime maybe try to cut down her intake of yeasty foods and increase fresh veg. Oh and lots of healthy oils such as avocado, sardines, olives, olive oil plus an omega 3 6 and 9 supplement for her dry skin.

[Longji]

The first 3 symptoms sound like she has an allergy to something. Dairy is the most common, might be worth cutting it out for a few weeks to see if it helps at all? It may not, but it's not a massive change to make for something that might help.

[123bananas]

I think you need to take her to see the GP.

They might want to test her urine to rule out a uti and do a fingerprick glucose monitoring test to look for signs of diabetes in light of the increased thirst and enuresis history.

They might want to do some blood tests to check for coeliac disease. Some of the Coeliac symptoms fit your description.

Possibly a stool sample too.

[bialystockandbloom]

Might be worth looking into her thyroid function. I don't know about the rest of the symptoms, but this can affect weight and bowel/bladder control. Has she been checked for this?

[Frontstep]

Thank you very much everyone. That's incredibly helpful. I'll make a GP appointment today.

[Frontstep]

That coeliac link is excellent, thanks. The site also says that coeliac and thyroid disorder very commonly go together, and the combination of coeliac and hypothyroidism symptoms cover nearly all of hers. Crikey! Realise I'm diagnosing by google here, so def a GP appointment in order. Thanks so much again

[BlackInk]

I'm currently waiting for coeliac blood test results to come back for my 7 year old son following years of symptoms that sound quite similar to your daughters. I feel like a hypochondriac piecing all his symptoms together and asking for the test, and my GP says it will almost certainly be negative as my son isn't underweight or small, in fact he is quite round around his middle.
He suffers from pretty much daily explosively windy very loose poos and always looks bloated (although never complains). He also gets mouth ulcers and occasional outbreaks of spots on his face. He's extremely irritable and emotional for his age and also clumsy/has poor balance/fear of heights. When I read the list of signs of coeliac in children I was shocked to see that he has most of them.
I've heard that a negative blood test isn't always accurate, but I've got no idea whether I should push for further tests or just accept this is how he is.
I'd be interested to hear how you get on - good luck to you and your daughter!

[Frontstep]

That's so interesting. I'll post again if I get anywhere with my DD and would also be keen to hear if you make progress, it sounds so similar. I've been put off pursing this I think because she's definitely not underweight, and that seems to be what they look for - but now I'm thinking the thyroid thing might explain that. Anyway, I'll update if I have more and will def insist on some tests. Good luck with your results!

[Frontstep]

Thought I'd update following really positive GP appointment today. It was a new young doctor we've not met before - as soon as I described the symptoms she immediately said that DD should have a coeliac test, and after a bit more discussion we agreed that thyroid function should also be tested. So far so good! We have to go for blood test to be done at hosp as apparently they always do that with kids. Hope your results came through and were good news / helpful, Blackink

[Persianprincess69]

Diabetic?

[BlackInk]

Great news OP that your GP was happy to look into things...
My sons bloods all came back normal - test for antibodies (Chrons etc) and Coeliacs and also tested iron count. No problems anywhere, which is great, but I don't know what to do next!
His bowels are so so bad at the moment, but the doctor still says either he might just grow out of it or that we can try cutting out food groups (dairy, wheat etc) to see whether it makes a difference. I just don't like the idea of limiting his diet without knowing why. He's already vegetarian and slightly fussy!
Do let me know how you get on. We had the blood test done at the surgery, but my son screamed and screamed - he's not very brave!!
BI x

[BarbarianMum]

Read your post and immediately thought coeliac or food allergy. Hopefully your doctor will take this seriously, but be prepared to push a bit for investigation/ answers.

[BrutusMcDogface]

Yup, I thought coeliac too! I'm glad your gp took you seriously, as that's a lot of things for one little girl to have wrong with her.

[JammyGeorge]

DS1 suffers from egg and cows milk protein allergy. He had a lot of the symptoms you mention. Swollen tummy, runny stools, he had night terrors, skin problems.

Once he came off diary everything slowly cleared up. His stomach came down literally overnight and his skin cleared up 2 weeks later.

Could be a lot of things but it sounds like you are on the right track, good luck.

[Lindy2]

A dairy intolerance caused a number of those symptoms for my DD.

[Frontstep]

Thanks everyone. Can I just ask: how would I get a diagnosis of dairy intolerance if that was the problem? I understand that the blood test should check for coeliac (though I get that it's not always conclusive). The GP is doing stool samples - would a dairy problem get picked up there? Or do I need to be trying to get a different test for dairy? Thanks!

[BlackInk]

As far as I can make out, it's not possible (or at least not recommended by NHS) to test for intolerances. Allergies you can test for, but an intolerance is vaguer and symptoms are less extreme/dangerous (I think). The impression we've been given by the doctor is that he doesn't think there's anything much wrong but if we want to try cutting out food groups and see what happens we can...

[BarbarianMum]

I'd test for allergies before you start thinking intolerance. To confirm an intolerance you need to cut out the food type totally for a couple of weeks - so for dairy that would be no milk, cheese, margarine, ice cream etc etc Eric and including things with these in like biscuits and milk chocolate. Problem with this method comes if you are allergic/intolerant to more than one thing because then the symptoms won't subside if you only cut out one. Only answer then to to try a strict exclusion diet (you start by eating only one or 2 things, wait for symptoms to subside, then reintroduce one thing at a time.) It is very tough though and a child should be under medical supervision throughout.

[Frontstep]

Ok, thanks, makes sense. So a blood test and stool test should show if there's an allergy presumably - and we go from there. Am wavering between obviously not wanting her to have an allergy but also kind of wanting it to be caused by something identifiable. We'll see what happens!

[Frontstep]

So eventually we got a blood test done! Dd's TSH was 3.4 and the range from the lab was 0.3 - 4.5. So doc says no action. I am still a bit worried about this as everything I read online suggests that less than 2 is preferable ...?

Other things of note in the bloods were low MCV and low MCH, which doc said was normal/ok in children, with ferritin 36 (so pretty low in range 12-250). Doc said not anaemia but just dietary. I'm not sure if we should try to increase this - we don't eat a lot of red meat. Both sodium and urea were at higher end of range but not over.

Unfortunately our apt was right in amongst the data crash thing so was a bit tricky. We didn't discuss coeliac in the end and I don't know if I ought to be able to see anything about this from the blood results (I have a copy) - anyone know what I'm looking for?

Really grateful for any further thoughts!

[Frontstep]

Oh and ps: ibs test came back clear

[PhilODox]

These symptoms sound v similar to my DD, who we're currently waiting to see a paed. She has had coeliac test, but negative.
She's been like this for years, minus enuresis.
Did your child have reflux as a baby?

[Frontstep]

Thanks for replying. She didn't have reflux, no. Hard to pinpoint exactly but I think it all started for us around age 4/5. Do you know what the test was you had for coeliac? Is it a specific test of its own, or part of a general blood test?

[Spam88]

OP, not sure what you mean by IBS test? As far as I'm aware there is no test for IBS, it's generally diagnosed based on symptoms when all other possible conditions have been tested for and excluded.

[PhilODox]

Hi, it was coeliac specific test, bit run as part of a whole set of bloods, I think they took three phials from her.