Celiac symptoms in 2 year old.

[Aspieparent]

I have a 2 nearly 3 year old who has an awful time with his bowels.
He goes goes an awful lot in a day. It's not diaorea though. It's more soft but does have mucus init. It's not often brown it's more often green or yellow. He also complains often of tummy pain, his belly becomes swollen over the course of the day and he has horrible wind. It also really smelly when he goes.
This is not necessarily every day but it's happening more and more often. I have been to the gp several times and the last time she said although she doesn't think it is anything serious she wanted a second opinion and has refered him to see a peadatrician who he's seeing on 9th of November.
People are saying it's most likely a allergy or intolerance more than likely celiac disease. Do symptoms come and go with celiac or would he always have pain and a swollen belly.

Forgot to add that he's got these really bad patches of dry skin on his knees, legs and bum which doctor keeps saying are eczema and just use e 45 with which am doing but nothing is helping. These patches get worse on his really bad bowel days.

Coeliac disease symptoms vary so so much from person to person. Have you kept a food diary to try and connect symptoms to any particular food he eats? That's what I would do while waiting for the paediatrician appointment.

Yes I have. He had a really bad week and the difference seemed to be he was eating more bread sticks and crackers pitta bread than before. We had been told at first it was fruit as he would eat alot of it so we cut that down and at snack times he was eating more bread sticks crackers and pitta bread than he used to as he always would normally eat the fruit and leave the rest.

Does sound like a correlation there. Keep up the diary and take it along to the appointment with you and ask for a blood test to check. Keep him on his normal diet (so no GF food) until a test has been done.

At this stage I wouldn’t rule anything in or out, some symptoms sound like coeliac disease but also like dairy reaction which can happen in coeliac disease

As you’re seeing a specialist soon just keep noting his symptoms and don’t take anything out of his diet as it could give false result in tests

Hi my 2 year old son has been diagnosed with celliac disease on 13th October after been so ill for months I was wondering do any parents on here have a child with the same disease my son is still getting diarrohea even after I have put him on a gluten free diet.

Hi Daisy

I am coeliac as are my now teen DS and dd

Have you joined coeliac uk yet for your DS ? they offer a buddy system for parents of newly diagnosed children to support them

Are you seeing the dietician at the hospital, they can go through the basics with you, sometimes it can be something really daft getting through

Here’s a list of basics to check

No oats even gluten free for the first 6 months as they too can cause a reaction

If frying, oil should be fresh and not used at any point to cook non gluten free foods as contamination will occur

Chip shop chips are NOT gluten free unless cooked separately, often a chip shop will advertise if and when they do gluten free

Little hands can and do touch things they shouldn’t, if your DS is like mine fingers go in the mouth especially when teething and child gets glutened

Check check and recheck food labels as things sneak through or the manufacturer changes the damn recipe

Try a course of good quality probiotics, optibac do a good children’s one. At my worst I reacted to dairy proteins as my gut bacteria was out of balance, probiotics sorted me out

Are you using butter, spread etc for everyone and potentially contaminating it? It just takes a crumb to make him ill, like wise the toaster? Pots and pans or the chopping board?

In adults you have to be aware that some lipsticks also contain gluten and when you eat or drink you then ingest the lipstick

Things do get better once you iron out the basics I promise but it can be daunting at the start of the journey

On a positive note, Asda and Tesco have lots of free from Christmas products for children if you’ve not found them already

But don't change his diet before he has any tests- he needs to be eating gluten when he goes for them.