Teething poo or allergy?

[Maz007]

I'd really appreciate some help from folks who have LOs with intolerance type allergies. I'm driving myself mad thinking that after many weeks of thinking I'd cracked it and we'd tracked down and excluded everything DD was reacting to something new has started to upset her...

Oooor... It could just be teething?!? I know it's not supposed to cause diarrhoea or make children ill with temps etc but have you found that it affects their nappies? If so, was it similar or different to a reaction to food? Don't be shy with the details - i am now obsessed with poo watching and won't be shocked :-)

I am at the end of my tether with this and I was going to give myself another month to try to work it out and eliminate anything else and failing that was going to go back to docs and ask for them to have a go... I'm wondering if coeliac disease needs ruling out if my best exclusion diet attempts are not getting to the bottom of it?

How frustrating... I don't have much wisdom to share, as I know virtually nothing about coelic's disease, and my DS's allergies are the ige sort rather than intolerances. I can tell you that teething never really affected DS's nappies, but also that my 1 year old mindee (eats everything no problem) always had slightly sloppier poo with a bit of mild nappy rash when another tooth came through.

If your DD has a temperature as well, could this be a mild tummy bug? Tis the season for tummy bugs, after all. DS always goes down really hard with them, and starts refusing food that he is normally okay with. They can go on for weeks sometimes, and it does confuse the issue of what foods he can manage and which ones he can't.

Hope you get to the bottom of it (pardon the pun!)

That pun made me smile :-) Thank you.

No signs of poorliness other than bad nappies and off her food...

It is frustrating not knowing what it is - at least with her IgE allergies we know where we're at!

Could her reaction to something be related to a build up in the dose of it over time? She was reacting to cows milk when we first weaned her but after several months we very slowly reintroduced it on the advice of her allergist to see if she'd outgrown it. We did it slowly and built up through baked, boiled and raw milk in small amounts. We were thrilled that she was fine and over the course of a month have increased so that she is now having some milk daily (in yogurt or cooked form mainly). I know this wouldn't be the case with IgE allergies but could she be reacting to the amount she's having?

Any thoughts would be most appreciated.

What is the poo like? Coeliacs eating gluten can have poo that is very pale (all or in parts) and foamy - with a particularly bad smell.

Also - any bloating or tummy aches?

All I will say is that in my experience (and many other mums I know), teething definitely causes horrendous nappies and horrific nappy rash. My DD in particular always suffered with diarrohea when she was teething which gave her terrible nappy rash (looked like she'd sat in a bath of acid). The rest of the time, she was perfectly fine though. I can't compare it to food reactions though as my DS has IgE allergies so doesn't affect his bowels and my DD is coeliac but the only symptoms she had were chronic tummy pain. However, she does get diarrohea now if she accidentally eats gluten, even though she didn't before she was diagnosed oddly.

My DS2 is dairy intolerant and when he was teething he did suffer with very loose poo and would be very picky about food before a tooth would appear.

Sometimes he just has weeks of awful poo and I cannot figure out any reason for it.

Thanks everyone. It's interesting to hear of horrible poos when teething in children with no non-ige allergies - very easy to put everything down to that. I think teething explains some of them. But I also wonder whether high amounts of dairy rather than just having any dairy is what sets her off. I'm going to test this out by giving slowly increasing doses I think and if that seems to be what's happening I guess it will be about working out what her 'threshold' is. I have spoken to her GP and they're going to do some blood tests as a first check for coeliac as her poos are pale and disgusting smelling, but they don't think this is as likely as the fact that we've got excited because we think she's ok and then overdo it and tip her over the edge. bedhopper occasionally she does seem to be in pain esp in the evening when her poo is grim but I guess that could be more than one thing.

Thanks again for your thoughts - as always.

My dd is cows milk protein and soya intolerant. The two are very similar. Have you removed soya?

Dd cannot tolerate yoghurt or milk. At all. She is ok with butter or choc or cheese in small amounts.
Soya isn't as straight forward. I can't work out her tolerancelevels of that because it isn't quantified on packets. Grrrrrr

Oh to answer question.... Dd never forms solid stool. Well, perhaps now with no milk or soya.
Doctors don't actually care, just me !

When teething they just smelled a lot more, sort of vinegary. Otherwise it was all slop!

It's nice to know it's not just us! Was struggling to shake the 'poo envy' idea that everyone else in the world changes lovely pebble shaped droppings We'll get to the bottom one day perhaps, meantime, worse things happen at sea. Thanks all.

Thanks for thoughts about soya too. We think she reacted to straight soya milk / yogurts etc but we have been giving her stuff with it as an ingredients... which I guess could have hugely different amounts of the stuff couldn't it?

Yes to poo envy. Everyone else could tip their potty into the loo and I am scrubbing mine every time! She's five now. There is always a lot of poo talk in our house.
We favour ploppy ones, she has to tell mummy if they are sloppy ones

DH is actually the same. He never faced up to it or realised it wasn't normal, years I told him he wasn't normal. It apparently is known to pass father to daughter.