Excluding artificial sweeteners?

[AleenaM]

Child aged 5 awaiting referral to paediatrics due to unexplained tummy aches. in the mean time, advised to cut out artificial sweeteners for 4 weeks, then dairy too for 4 weeks.

Struggling to think what foods have sweeteners ? I know about drinks, however they mostly only drink water, milk and juice which I dilute at home from 100% supermarket juice. I know some yogurts and desserts might have it, but again not in his diet regularly. What am I missing?

Also if I think he doesn't currently have a lot of sweeteners, should I move directly to dairy exclusion? Will ask the doctor but they are off until Friday now.

Thank you

Help ? 😁

Everything

Some sauces/ketchup etc
Some sweets
Some biscuits and cakes
Some crisps
Lots of yogurts
Hardly a single drink you can buy with a meal deal, fast food restaurant is safe

Some ready meals , some restaurant desserts

Sorbitol, aspartame, stevia, xylitol, sucralose, acesulfame,

They're in virtually everything. I'm using fruit tea bags to flavour my water instead of cordials.
Rocks juice is ok but so sodding expensive Be aware that some fruit tea bags have artificial sweeteners in them ( Aldi's went straight in the bin )
Check anything that says low/ reduced sugar. The bastards are usually in those
I'm using tesco reduced sugar/ salt beans. Those are safe ( for the moment )

Stevia is marketed as ' natural ' but still dodgy from what I've researched

Children's vitamin gummies? Fruit shoots and squash. Calpol?

Thank you, I don't think my child has a lot of these (sauce, yogurts, drinks) he has chocolate, biscuits or cakes, I will pay more attention to that.

Any idea why they would've asked for this to be excluded first? Are these ingredients a laxative ?

Well yes but also some people are horribly sensitive to them, tummy pain, diarrhea, migraines

They have a horrid affect on your pancreas and the WHO recently suggested against them

Because they just make some people sick.

the problem I’m most familiar with is migraines and the associated stomach upset because that is my issue. It runs in my family.

if your child does have an allergy or intolerance to something, you will get used to reading every label, every time so this is a good time to start

Thank you!

So with cutting out things, is it an all or nothing, for example is it enough if I do my best but still give Calpol when needed ? Or if they have something at say a birthday? I'm asking if they get worse the more you have, or even a little will do damage.

If your kid has non ige mediated allergies (intolerances that cause gut issues) they're likely highly sensitive to the laxative effects of sweeteners. My DS had liquid diarrhoea after calpol with sweeteners.

You may find large quantities of coconut or sweet potato do the same.

high juice squashes all have them in except for some from Asda and the M&S orange hi juice

Oh and a lot of medications have them in now too

Any chance of reflux? My 3 yo has reflux and food allergies and when her reflux is out of control she complains daily of tummy ache which goes away when the reflux meds are increased again. With her food allergies she complains of pain in her bottom

Have they said try to cut out, or have they said elimination? If it's the latter then it should be total as otherwise they can't tell if that's the/ a trigger or not if DC is having even little bits. As everyone's said though it's a nightmare to try to avoid them, especially thanks to the sugar tax. Most sweeteners really trigger my IBS and there are now virtually no safe soft drinks left to have in the pub, with a meal deal etc. Something's gone wrong with 'better for you' when the alleged improvements give a lot of people chronic diarrhoea or migraines.

It really depends on how bad the symptoms are for your child. Even as a child, I would be projectile vomiting within minutes of someone giving me a single sugar-free mint.

it wasn’t cumulative, but it was absolutely miserable even if I had small doses. Sometimes I might not vomit, but I still felt awful.

I didn’t allow my child to have artificial sweeteners when I still had complete control over her food and I was meticulous. Sure enough, she had migraines and they are one of her triggers.

if it is migraines, calpol is helpful, but barely. You need a prescription.

it’s really hard to figure out at first because children can’t explain well and each food has so many ingredients. If they are saying avoid, I would be vigilant and see if the problem goes away completely.

Thank you wll, they said "exclude" sweeteners, then diary so I assume means it means completely exclude. The GP passed on the message from paediatrics but I haven't had an in depth convo yet.

Child is ok day to day but says "my tummy hurts all the time, every day" this has been going on for months so they're getting checked for this.

Could be, he had reflux as a baby. How do they rule that out or diagnose, how can I tell?

For my daughter she never grew out of it and it goes in and out of being controlled. She has to be on the highest doses and even then things like coughs and colds trigger it. If she has had a growth spurt the reflux gets worse again

We can hear her reflux through the night this and her responding to the increased medication is how hers is recognised. You can have a barium swallow test out paediatricians are willing to do this for my daughter at the moment as they are confident she has reflux so all it will do is confirm that and wouldn't change her treatment plan and you can reflux the barium without refluxing generally so can get false positives. My daughter is 3 so they are cautious about making sure any tests would have a benefit to her or would change the treatment plan.

Things you can do to help if it is reflux is to try to reduce the volume of drinks and make sure they don't have too much before bed. My daughters reflux is a lot worse overnight but she will complain of the tummy pain all through the day.

It might be worth raising with your Dr they might offer a trial of omperazole to see if that helps.

Also toothpaste.

My DC had something similar. The only thing with artificial sweeteners she had was Calpol. It also started about the age of 5. When they started school. A really sweet school and they’d been at a lovely nursery. But it was anxiety. It took years and loads of tests to work it out and get help.