Suspected temporary lactose intolerance advice please

[festivefriedawhingesagain]

Looking for a bit of advice from you lot in the know

DS was investigated for persistant loose stools (no weight loss, ok otherwise) earlier this year and discharged by the paed after blood tests and stool samples - to rule out coeliac mostly. He had a stool sample sent for reducing substances but had no symptoms at the time and it was clear. We discussed the possibility of persistent symptoms being possibly due to temporary lactose intolerance after stomach bugs.

Current situation - he started with diarrhoea and vomiting 12 days ago. Vomiting stopped, still got revolting mucousy loose nappies. They are really nasty.

I am not bothered about the initial cause of the diarrhoea, am sure it was 'just' viral as we all went down with it. But is there any point asking the GP to send another sample for reducing substances to see if he is currently lactose intolerant? Will they oblige/is it an expensive test?

Do I just put him on a lactose free diet to see if it helps? How long would it take to see an improvement? (And where the hell do I start with a lactose free diet???)

I hate the idea of restricting his diet without good reason but I feel I should do something.

no point in sending a stool sample, as lactose intolerance won't show up there, there is no actual test for Lactose intolerance, only observation

I have similar problems with my DD, who is now 8 & as a result now has an IBS diagnosis, though Gastro Paed did say as she wasn't having a flare up & I mostly have it under control it wasn't possible to say whether or not it could actually by Crohns, which was suggested by an A&E Dr, as she had colitis when seen there.

I've had quite a few bouts of out of control diareah & stomach pain with her, weight loss & vit deficiency signs included:( so over the years have come to realise what helps & what doesn't & what her triggers are, so MOSTLY she doesn't suffer to badly :)

DD IS definitely lactose intolerant, & during a flare up, also cannot eat Wheat or ANY Diary, normal times she can eat a little wheat & all dairy bar milk, so she drinks lactofree....she is also very sensitive to food additives, things like MSG, Benzoate preservatives, some colours, & artificial sweetners will ALL set off diareah, nausea & pain, so we avoid these all the time.

with her, my tried & tested plan of action during a bad flare ...ongoing diareah & pain......until settled completely

Avoid all Diary,

Avoid wheat

Avoid High roughage Foods(the healthy brown stuff & fruit veg)

& for a couple of days, give a very bland diet of fish & white rice cooked in the spice Turmeric (Turmeric is a natural anti inflamitory & will help settle an inflamed colon, so ease pain & diareah)

after the first few days avoid high roughage foods, wheat & diary, & as things start to settle re-introduce veg, & white meats such as Chicken & a little (white) wheat, but avoid dairy & acidic fruits until completely settled.

also give him some Veridian Childrens stomach flora, it will replace the good bacteria & help his gut re balance itself, its a powder & can be mixed with anything :)

When it settles completely re -introduce all foods, but if Lactose intolerance has been suggested, then get lactofree or non diary milk for a while longer

My own DD became lactose intolerant after a bout of diareah etc after having heavy duty antibiotics, & it stayed with her, those as I say, during "well" phases it is only milk she can't tolerate.

also let him have crisps & coke (NOT sugar free) & add some epsom salts to his bath for magnesium.....this will all help replace the tissue salts he is losing

Hope that helps,

some of it might sound extreme & go against all you know as far as nutrition etc, but if its only for a very short while it won't harm & will give his guts a rest & time to heal themselves....I was at my wits end with DDs last bad ongoing bout, after more anti biotics, nothing worked :( GP no help, & she was in such a state, the fish, rice & tumeric, with Veridian powder added to chocolte shake made from Coconut milk & cocoa got her over the worst of it in 2 days :)

Lots of suggestions there, thanks. Trouble is, without no dairy and no wheat, there would be very little of his diet left- he hates rice, not keen on fish except a bit of salmon. Only eats a little meat really. Has a wheat based breakfast cereal.

Paed felt it was possibly some intolerance, or maybe just toddler diarrhoea. The trouble is - the diet for toddler diarrhoea is all high fat, plenty of full fat dairy, not much fruit or juice. Over the summer when he has no stomach upsets, he bowels seemed pretty normal.

Last winter he had nasty poos most of the winter really.

DS loves fruit. He has a pretty healthy diet really. I wouldn't mind trying a restricted diet if I knew it was neccessary, just hate the not knowing.

you'd be surprised, there are a lot of alternatives to wheat & diary, & with a bit of planning its actually pretty easy, much easier than seeing them suffer so much:( but that sai it is hopefully only for a few days, to give his tummy a break anyway, & if its lactose intolerance as opposed to dairy, then that is very easy to manage, my own DD cannot tell the difference between normal & Lactofree milk, neither can I for that matter

The fact that you say he is fine in summer, suggests its something he eats in winter months, or perhaps more of in winter months, maybe that is something to think about?

Will he eat pancakes or wraps??, buckwheat flour is a good wheat alternative & easy to make into either, maybe a couple of days of salmon cooked in tumeric or add tumeric to the wrap mix, if his diareah is bad, then even if he eats little for a day or too, it still gives his gut a rest & time to heal, no reason why he can't go back to his normal fruit & veg after that :)

I think it's just the winter bugs that trigger it rather a diet thing, but then he just takes forever to get back to anything near normal.

May give the lactofree a whirl though, will have to google what to avoid for lactose free diet though as I have no idea.

Today he had 4 nasty nappies around lunchtime, after having none since yesterday afternoon. That would be around 3-4 hours since lots of milk at breakfast time. He only really has milk at breakfast as he is still breastfed before his nap and at bedtime. But he only started having cows milk at roughly the same time he started having issues now I think about it, as he used to have a banana every day for breakfast til about 10 months.

Plenty to think about, thanks for the replies

I got DS on some pre-biotics after a bout of gastro and I think it may have avoided the temporary lactose intolerance we encountered the last time he had a tummy bug. Can't hurt?

I think it's just the winter bugs that trigger it rather a diet thing, but then he just takes forever to get back to anything near normal.

It doesn't really matter how it starts, the end result is the same, the poor mights guts are inflamed & not working properly :( ...

my DDs was initially caused by AntiBs, rather than a bug, but it had exactly the same effect,left her intestines battered & bruised & needing a bit of a rest from hard to digest foods,

sadly I didn't know that straight away :( & the Drs\health visitors etc that we saw weren't much help either, so sadly it carried on & shes ended up with a very sensitive digestive system & ongoing problems that flare up frequently if she doesn't avoid stuff we now know aggravates her gut.......

only tonight she's had a bad bout of diarreah & has been doubled up, because she went to the cinema with her Dad & he let her have a fruit shoot

do give the lacto free stuff a try for a while, its easy to find & if its not enough, maybe try the other stuff, though I can highly recommend the Viridia Kids Pre/pro biotics, & Tumeric to help heal his gut too....you could maybe make a soup & add it??...it really helped my DD when she wasreally ill & nothing else...not even the Drs Buscopan worked :(

I'm wondering about the banana though??, am I understanding you in that he didn't have the stomach upset when he ate Banana??? ....if so , he might be short on pottasium...

bananas are a great source of that, & diareah will make him lose it, & been low in pottasium can affect his stomach....bananas also have some other good stuff for the stomach,either flora (pre/pro biotics) or enzymes that help your body make them (tired so forget which

Will he eat good dark chocolate??, as that is another great source of pottassium, but without the roughage...or the shake made with cocoa & Viridian powders as above.

hope you get it settled soon :)

Hello, I wondered if I could ask about this as Ds has had satan's nappies for the last 2 months or so after a bad viral infection. He's otherwise fine, temp wise but his tummy is often distended and we have 1-2 explosive, particularly foul-smelling nappies a day.

There's no vomiting or clear pain as you've mentioned - though he sometimes itches at his tummy, which also makes me think he's got some discomfort there.

We're seeing the paed but it's over a month away and as he still has nappies that seep sometimes, we're racking our heads to think what it is. We're keeping a food diary and it seemed to be getting better for about a week and a half after we reintroduced milk but it's got worse again.

Does this sound like lactose intolerance, do you think?

Our GP suggested giving him bananas btw for exactly the reasons you suggest, rockinhippy and he likes them.

In any case, I hope we all have better nappies soon

Hi Mama, I like the sound of your GP, I wish mine had been so good on that sort of advice in the early days :)

It sounds like it could possibly be either lactose or diary -which is the milk protein, rather than just the sugar, but if he was eating other dairy things during the time it eased off, then it probably is lactose intolerance.

Though my own DD can tolerate the lactose in everything but Milk, whilst she's well, but any diary will aggravate her stomach if she's already struggling with it due to something else, if that makes sense

if he was having other dairy food, then maybe try swapping him onto the lactofree milk & see if that solves your problem :)

hope so & that you get him settled soon

good luck

Hi rockinhippy,

Thanks so much for your reply. Yes, our GP has been fab - I think we're very lucky there.

Thank you so much too for your advice on the lactose intolerance. I think you're spot on - we'd cut out milk but still gave him cheese and yoghurt to keep his calcium up but it's still iffy, so now we're introducing the rockinhippy diet as outlined above in the hope we can get to the bottom of it all (as it were...)

We might try some goat's milk and butter eventually, as when I was young I found it much easier to digest than other dairy. We did try soya milk (is that the same as lactofree?) but it made things really grim.

I hope your DD is much better (and your DS, festive) and thanks so much for the fab advice - we were starting to tear our hair out!

What a horrible situation for you and your poor DS.
I think you've had a lot of advice and I don't feel able to provide any myself, but wanted to add that we all drink goats milk in our house as one of my kids would come out in a eczema type rash from cows milk.
I know it's not he same problem as your DS, but goats milk is so much milder and really helped.