Son with inflamed gut and not thriving

[Gazpacho]

Hi My son (16) had emergency and complicated appendix removal 18 months ago, with some peritonitis, so a few days in hospital and a big scar - they had trouble locating the appendix. He had a lot of antibiotics at the time, but seemed to make good recovery. However his digestive system has never really gone back to normal since then. Because of spots, he cut out dairy. Around same time, he noticed that avoiding wheat settled his tummy symptoms - bloating, wind, crampy, sudden sprints to loo (at end of one gluten free week, had near normal motions rather than too loose) so was tested for celiac / crohns in March. Came back with negative for those but was referred to hospital as has inflamed gut. 6 months on and he is still waiting for the appointment. Meantime he is increasingly tired all the time, bad skin, sleep problems, often crabby and generally a bit miserable. Is avoiding gluten and dairy until we get appointment date, then will resume the gluten as they’ll test again I expect. Of course I have been looking for answers online while we wait, and am going to ask him to try B12 supplements for the extreme fatigue. Does this all sound like anything anyone else has encountered, and should we go back and speak to GP while we wait, or sit it out? This is big year at school for him (highers) and he is just not thriving. Should add that his diet though dairy and gluten free is very healthy - the appendix was a watershed as regards diet, and he now avoids sugar and general crap foods, only drinks water or smoothies, eats plenty fruit veg nuts pulses meat and fish. So a pretty healthy diet for a teenager. Any insights would be very welcome.

My first thoughts are you need to do a gut reboot with high quality pre and probiotics

I use optibac as a pro biotic and bimuno daily as a prebiotic, also consider kafir to widen the mix

Many years ago after taking antibiotics I developed pseudomembranis colitis which caused all sorts of problems and made me unable to tolerate dairy

After 6 months a course of metronidazole sorted things but I still needed to repopulate my gut

Agree with pp but be careful: if dairy is his issue lots of supplements and most pre/probiotics have dairy, or at least lactose in them.
for what it's worth, I'd also be tempted to do a very limited diet and add stuff back in one week at a time to see how he feels: I am not coeliac but cannot tolerate wheat, and oddly, chickpeas; both of which I'd eaten for years feeling a bit crap but not making the link.

Thank you both for your messages, much appreciated. 🙂 I had wondered about probiotics - I guess he can’t feel much worse than he does already if we give them a try. Will be sure to check for lactose in the ingredients though. Will go look up pseudo...colitis.

It definitely sounds like a case of the goid bacteria having been killed off in his gut and not recovering yet. Also, the appendix has been found to be central to the regeneration of good bacteria, so if his has been removed he'll have to work extra hard. Look at the clever guts website by Dr Michael Moseley - I'm currently reading his book and it's fascinating. Maybe chase the hospital referral too?

Good, not goid- I haven't invented a new bacteria