What is causing frequent, painful, windy, belly in DS7?

[ClearlynotaMandy]

Poor old DS had non ige milk intolerance from birth, he had all the classic symptoms but once he was put on hypo milk- he was fine. did the milk ladder and seemed to have grown out of it. However, in the evenings before bed (after dinner) and when he wakes up in the morning he has frequent gassy stomach pains. He also regularly complains of stomach pain during the day.
As a little trial run, over the summer holidays I cut out the dairy again, which didn't seem to make any difference so he's now back on it. Spoke to the doctor who sent him for coeliac screen, all normal, and yet still... regularly bent double with wind.
Poo is erring on the side of constipation (bit rabbity!) I feel totally helpless and really want to help him.
It's not dehydration as he drinks lots.
I'm now wondering if he could be intolerant to something I haven't thought of, the only problem is, there is an enormous wait for allergy testing in our area and if its not a full allergy but an intolerance, will it show up on testing anyway?
I know it's not recommended, but I really want to try an elimination diet to see if anything makes a difference as I'm feeling a bit desperate, but don't know where to begin. Has anybody got any experience with intolerances to certain foods with similar symptoms? Many thanks.

It really sounds like cmpa, how long did you do an elimination diet for? And did you cut out all milk containing products?

My daughter is a similar age and reacts similarly to milk, also previously had cmpa.

Apparently dairy can cause damage to the gut too, which is what paeds think has happened to my dd.

DS1 had CMPA; he also reacted badly to a list of foods including peas, peanuts, red peppers, onions, garlic, and anything high fibre (wholefoods, wholemeal cereals & bread).

Thanks for the reply @SamAndEIIa , we cut it for 7 weeks, not even a trace.
Is your daughter completely DF?
It's worrying about the gut damage, we tried a probiotic but it gave him diarrhoea- So hard to know what to do for best!

This is interesting, are these the sort of foods that set off IBS?

I can no longer tolerate onion or onion powder/extract (in some gravies) or garlic or certain spices. Is he having any of those in his evening meals?

Me too - I have to avoid most of them now as I've developed IBS. I'm also intolerant to lactose. Meanwhile DS seems to have grown out of his allergy.

I often joke that I'm the captain of the IBS Express, and I came here to post a very similar list of foods.

I try my best to avoid trigger foods but if I eat something with onion in it, I'll know pretty quickly. Swollen stomach, cramps, urgent need for the toilet - sometimes as soon as 30 minutes after eating. I have also noticed that certain fruits (melon, for one) give me really painful trapped wind.

Some allergies can cause other allergies, too. For example, I'm allergic to latex and that has caused me to suddenly react to mustard seeds and kiwi. Apparently the proteins are very similar. I bloody love kiwi, too

@ClearlynotaMandy my 1yr old has milk intolerance but gets bad pain and wind from nightshade vegetables, white potato, tomato, eggplant. He also reacts to onions and sweet potato too.

Thanks everyone for your responses, Sounds like onions are a big trigger for a lot of people and we eat quite a lot of onions in my cooking. Maybe a food/symptom diary is in order to see what his triggers are.

Artifical sweeteners can also have this effect

This is interesting because my husband has a reaction to nightshades too. (calls them devil berries- apparently this is what they called tomatoes years ago!)
Was it very obvious that these were causing the issue? or was it trial and error?

Thanks for response.

Right. That's it... no more squash! I let him have a glass when he gets home from school, which could go some way to explain why he seems to be ok during the day at school (Water only)

@ClearlynotaMandy I only know this because I was trying to be "good" and started and used sweeteners instead of sugar in my coffee and the result was my stomach being rock hard, trapped wind, digestive issues etc. Switched back to sugar and it stopped again. Sugar free jelly also sets it off.

It is only certain sweeteners for me, for example diet coke I have no problem with.

@ClearlynotaMandy not obvious at first but I realised from white potato as there was always some in his meal. I read up on it and saw about nightshade vegetables and did a complete cut out and he was better. Tried introducing slowly but paediatric doctor said wait 4 weeks and try again suppose his stomach needs to get stronger as he's only 1

I learned that the hard way! I ate something containing xylitol and spent the rest of the afternoon feeling like a blimp.

A few months later, DH complained of trapped wind after eating a low carb protein bar and I immediately checked the ingredients - xylitol.

No other sweetener has had that effect so it's banned from our house now 😬

I used to have this as a kid, and through my teens, but without the history of allergy/intolerance.

In the 80s, this was called ‘wind’ and no other efforts were made to work out whether it was anything more than that. But my mum used to give me a glass of a small amount of whiskey, sugar and hot water and I was made to sip it whilst gently rubbing my tummy in circular motions. It did work!

Just mentioning as it may be that this alleviates symptoms for him, not because I think it is the way forward in dealing with it.

I get this if I eat too much refined sugar.

Taking probiotics (keffir) gave me diarrhoea and a really noisy tummy, but it settled down after a few days and things are much better now.

Take a look at a fairly old book by a doctor Doris Rapp - "Is This Your Child?"

It's a really huge tome, and has a good deal of info on elimination diets.

Possibly hard to find but look online.

Has he been tested for coeliac?