Is this a reaction (nappy contents tmi!)

[ilovetosleep]

My DS and I have been gluten, dairy, soy and egg free for months now due to his severe silent reflux. He's 10 months now and we are under a dietician and feeding clinic where we also see a paed and slt (he barely eats solids and has had issues with food aversion in the past). Anyway under their guidance we are reintroducing things starting with soya. Egg is off for good as he tested +ve with skin prick, will retest at 12mo.

We were told to give hind a taste if soya yoghurt, then a couple of spend the next day, a few more the next day etc until after one week he was on about a whole yoghurt. Well he won't be spoon fed for love nor money so that was a little tricky, but instead we've given him tofu with his lunch. He seems to enjoy eating it which is only a good thing (he really eats very little and has managed to maintain 91st centile on night time breast feeds!) he has had no painful symptoms but his nappies have been quite sloppy the last couple of days. A bit mucousy, smelly and some undigested chunks of food - grape quarters and carrot chunks today! Now he is teething and dribbling constantly so I don't know whether this constitutes an intolerance reaction or not. Haven't been able to speak to dietician til Monday but she did say if the reaction is very mild we need to weigh up the pros and cons of him eating it or not to increase his tolerance. Eg a bit of a sloppy poo is manageable if there is no pain etc and it means we can get a bit more protein in him. Tbh we don't eat a lot of soya so it wouldn't be a huge part of his diet, but it's been hard avoiding everything with soya as an ingredient and it would be good to cross one thing off the list. I'd be able to give him a few more meals off our family repertoire - ie miso fish, edamame beans etc once in a while, plus if he ever accepts a spoon I'd be able to give him yoghurt.

I'd appreciate your thoughts on this- are nasty nappies reason enough to avoid something or could it be damaging him long term? Or are those kind of poos associated with teething too
Thanks in advance

I am non coeliac gluten intolerant and also sensitive to lactose in milk and soya if I have to much.

My fairly recent diagnosis (I am 51 year sold) was by diet exclusion and reintroduction. I suggest you take away the soya and see what happens then reintroduce. You will see a pattern emerging.

Obviously, you need to talk to dietician. Yes it could be teething so that is why you need to carefully monitor and note the patterns. Certainly, I had pretty much all those symptoms and I definitely wasn't teething.

Incidentally I also get terrible reflux.

This has turned into an essay and probably goes against the tide that you're dietician and paediatrician wish to go.

Soy is not the best food to include in the diet of a person with food intolerences. Do a lot of research among the 'leaky gut' schools of thought son that you can be as informed as you can.

The Pro's and Con's of reintroduction versus 'mild' intolerences at this age are very difficult to predict but in my experience, it can take weeks to recover from a reaction but also, it can take weeks for a reaction to become obvious, a number of low lying issues gradually grow until they become significant.

The gut forms a large part of our immune system and if this is not working at full strength, the immune system will not be functioning properly. If food is not transiting properly, all the minerals, enzymes and vitamins that provide vital and little understood functions in the body which are not being absorbed, can lead to long term issues.

He is very young and it is unlikely that his gut issues have been resolved, in my opinion, you are better off shoring up his system with long chain fatty acids, rebalancing his gut bacteria and staying away from grains, yeast, dairy and soy and not stressing his immune system further by attempting reintroduction until he is older and more healthy.

It is likely his food aversion will improve, when his gut feels better. Bitter voice of experience. Follow your gut instinct and don't look for other reasons for his illness, if he was well, his immune system would fight whatever is going round. My chronic gut DS was a chronic dribbler too. I think it is all part of the picture.....

I'm feeling totally alone with all of this. I don't have much faith in the hcps here (I'm not UK and its been hard to get taken seriously over this)

anotherday your message has me freaked out a little! I suppose I hadn't really come to terms with how serious it could be despite only relatively mild symptoms. I have never suffered with any allergies or intolerances and feel totally out of my depth. Neither has DS1 who has always eaten everything and is a fantastic eater.

Can you tell me a little about your DS's symptoms? How did you figure it all out and get a diagnosis? Just to give a bit more background, our DS2s main symptoms early on were reflux symptoms which manifested in long and frequent nursing strikes as a younger baby and very restless and sleepless nights. He was a real grizzler up until very recently, never happy playing, only satisfied being carried around. Now he is coming up to 10 months and much happier all round. Our main issues now are frequent night feeding (every 1.5 hrs on an average night, can be slightly better or much worse) and reluctance with solids. He does eat, just very small quantities and once he's had enough, he sits in his chair arms flapping and whinging until he is taken down. DH thinks he's just full and bored, and being a typical baby, as he is totally fine and happy once he is taken down from the table. But we are a family of foodies and it feels so unusual to me to have a child that isn't interested! And now there is this issue with loose stools and undigested food, since starting solids. I know he is not able to absorb nutrients if the food is undigested.

As a side note I am really struggling on such a restricted diet because of the breastfeeding and not wanting to pass on allergens to DS!

I didn't mean to freak you out, I am sorry, it is hard enough, I had hoped to be supportive of what I read through your post that your instinct was to stop the soya.

I have three children, the eldest is 10 and I don't think we are at the bottom of his gut issues yet, despite years of trying and listening to people who think they know it all, random strangers on the Internet, health professionals and alternative therapists. The truth is, no one knows everything and no one knows one answer that works for every person. Somehow we have to find the best path that we can based on the information we have and the symptoms that we see.

My youngest, born 4.5 years after the eldest, is despite everthing I learned along the way, highly reactive to a huge number of substances. He was a very cranky baby, very dribbly, very snotty, very cranky, had terrible nappies and bad skin. At my wits end, I went to a nutritionist (three in fact!!) and he was sensitive to wheat, dairy and sugar (not many skin pricks for sugar!!), later he reacted to peanuts and sesame on a more serious level. He was also reacting to chemicals. I never pursued the silent reflux route as I was determined not to go down the medication route with this as I did with my first son and then spent years fixing his stomach enzymes but I suspect, it could have been diagnosed based on what I am other health professionals observed.

The story of my eldest is less severe, he had reflux, was treated, was generally grumpy, snotty, and had loose but not horrific bowels, was prone to infections which I was reassured was on the unlucky side of normal (it wasn't). He never said he was hungry. A couple of months into his food restrictions, he said he was hungry, I probably cried, I hadn't realised his food was hurting him and when he was gulping his food / milk, it was in the false hope that it would stop the pain, but it didn't.

I cannot say that my story is the same as yours and many many children reintroduce food early and there are lots of successful stories in here.

What country are you in? (I am in Switzerland) and there is loads of support / information available about food. It is not easy, I am certaintly not saying that, but some small changes in diet make the biggest difference, I remember whooping for joy when we could have egg again!!