Reintroducing gluten?

[CheerfulYank]

I have celiac disease, and when DS (now 2.8) was first starting solids he had frequent diarrhea. It seemed to get better when we removed gluten from his diet; he hasn't eaten any in over a year. He has had a bite of a cracker or something a few times when someone hasn't known and it doesn't seem to have affected him. (He still gets diarrhea from time to time, but it doesn't seem to be connected to the "slip-ups".)

Would this be a good time to reintroduce gluten to see if he can tolerate it? He's quite verbal and would be able to tell me "my stomach hurts," etc. It's been hard b/c he's really starting to notice the difference. Last night at Parenting Circle there were shamrock cookies for a treat, and DH reported that DS was heartbroken when he couldn't eat one. I know it's not a huge deal but it makes me as he can't really understand. So if he can eat it I'd like to know.

So...what d'you think?

I'd go to the Drs, get an appointment for blood tests/endoscopy, then reintroduce gluten fully for at least 6 weeks before that.

Then, either way that goes, you'll know if he is coeliac, and also how he seems on gluten. But personally, I'd want to do the two things together, so that if he is coeliac you have a firm diagnosis

I've thought that too, but blood tests can be inconclusive and I'm not sure I want to put him through an endoscopy if I don't have to iyswim. Our pediatrician was reluctant to do either of those things in the beginning for those reasons.

Thanks though, will take it into consideration!

I know where you are coming from, and I think when they are very little it's worth holding off, but then when he's older you might have more trouble getting gf food provided at school etc if he doesn't have a diagnosis.

And if an endoscopy was clear, then even if you chose for him to be gf from a symptomatic pov, at least you could be more relaxed about glutenation knowing that it would 'just' be a bad tummy rather than storing up damage.

As a coeliac I debated this for us - fortunatly DS has been fine so far - and decided that I would need to know for sure what we were facing