Could this be dairy allergy/intolerance?

[Infinity234]

My son who is 7 has been suffering from abdominal pains since the start of the Christmas holidays. I genuinely thought it was appendicitis as he was in agony, we went to A&E on Christmas Eve night but as he fell asleep from exhaustion there was little they could do, we ended up back there a few nights later and the doctor just put it down to a stomach bug (no vomiting or diarrhoea though). Things were really bad, every day he was in pain so we went to the GP and he had coeliac bloods and calprotectin stool sample, both came back negative.

We ended up in A&E again at the end of January where they finally xrayed him. They said he was full of poo and gave me laxative sachets and a guide to disimpaction regime. He generally pooed daily, very occasionally he’d go a day without. Sometimes very big poos, which is why I’d never thought it was constipation.

We completed the disimpaction regime last weekend and for the rest of the week he’s had 2-3 sachets of laxido a day. Stomach cramps there occasionally still, mainly late afternoon/early evening but thought this was just things settling down.

He woke me up this morning at 3am in agony again, asking me to take him to hospital (he says this because he’s scared of the pain). He went to the toilet a couple of times and it was soft as I would have expected on the sachets, but then he carried on going several more times and it was watery diarrhoea. We were awake from 3am and at around 7am he vomited. I then thought it must be a bug and unrelated to his tummy issues. But thinking about it now he had quite a lot of dairy yesterday, ice cream, milk, cereal with milk on, a bit of chocolate. He hasn’t vomited since, but is refusing to eat now because he’s scared of being sick again.

He’s never had any issues with dairy before, could it come on like this? Could it cause these symptoms? I know it can quite often cause skin issues but he doesn’t have any. I’m worrying something worse is being missed. He is very slim as it is and can’t afford to not eat, sometimes he won’t eat when the pain is bad, understandably.

[Superscientist]

Allergies and intolerance can develop at any point.

You can get secondary dairy/lactose intolerance after a stomach bug where your body is more sensitive afterwards, it can be temporary or more long lasting. Unfortunately the only way to tell is to remove dairy for a few weeks and see if there is an improvement. Constipation is also a symptom of dairy allergies/intolerances not just loose stools.
It's probably worth starting a food and symptoms diary and maybe try swapping some dairy products out for dairy free alternatives and see if just reducing dairy is sufficient. My partner had IBS as a teenager and into his early 20s. He was fine with dairy as long as he (we) didn't eat a tub of ice-cream in one sitting

[RandomMess]

Milk intolerance often causes constipation. Another sign can be soreness around the lips.

[Yogatoga1]

It’s possible.

my dc had gut issues most of her life. We put it down to her eating habits as she was very food avoidant, had a list of safe foods etc.

it wasn’t until she hit teenage and developed pretty severe acne, that lotions and lotions didn’t touch. She decided to cut out dairy as someone told her it can help.

difference almost immediate. She’s gone from having a few days off each term with some sort of “stomach bug” vomiting/diarhrroea, her eating habits are much better now she’s not either constantly nauseous (which she’d never managed to articulate) and knows food won’t make her feel sick. The acne has completely cleared.

i’ve gone from sceptic to seeing the difference first hand.

so I’d say cut the dairy for two weeks, see if it helps.