Posting for Traffic - DD ill since October

[notbloodybranston]

Please help.

DD is nine, normally eats a good range of foods, swims, trampolines and is usually healthy. She does appear to be on the road to puberty, and is beginning to change shape.

She had a series of throat/chest/ ear infections since October. She was given about three lots of antibiotics and had a fair bit of time off school.

Since November she has been sent home from school a couple of times because she had fainted or gone very pale and felt sick. She feels sick all the time (it's just normal now) and is often a grey colour. One GP thinks she has water in her middle ear which is making her dizzy and has prescribed loratadine and a Nasal spray, as he thinks the water in her ear is caused by an allergy. The other GP just checks her pulse, temp, urine etc which are normal and says he doesn't want her to go through the trauma of a blood test. He thinks it is post viral and will sort itself out.

DD goes to bed propped up on four pillows every night due to nausea. I am now at wits end. She has no energy. I am not usually over anxious (more the school of benign neglect) but lost my mum last June, and seeing DD like this is driving me wild.

I am taking her back tomorrow to GP. Am going to ask for blood test (she is so pale I want to check iron) and perhaps allergy test. Does anyone have any ideas - what would you do???

Sorry, stupid phone.

My daughter had similar symptoms from about aged 10 in that she would frequently vomit, have the runs, complain of stomach pains and faint. This went on for a while and GP put down to pre-menstraution symptoms. At times the symptoms would calm down but then would flare up again. It was awful to see her suffer and at aged 11 she started her periods. At age 12 she was rushed into hospital in excruciating pain. After an ultrasound and MRI they discovered a 23cm ovarian cyst. Unfortunately it was so big that it had twisted round her Fallopian tube and ovary and she had to have them removed.

I don't mean to scare you - my point is that I was constantly reassured by the GP that it was nothing to worry about . My point is - keep pushing for a referral

Wow - thank you all - thought this thread faded away.

Couldn't get an appointment yesterday, but managed to get in at 2pm this afternoon. Bizarrely, either going in a suit (straight from work) or taking a typed list of symptoms and requests helped, as the GP noticeably sat up and got going.

So

1. Referred to Paeds
2. Stool sample pot sat on bathroom window (five year old DS thinks this is hilarious) awaiting deposit
3. Blood tests on children's ward next Wednesday (couldn't get in any sooner). These include ESR (?), FBC (full blood count?), Bone profile, CRP C reactive protein (no idea?), glucose (diabetes?) hepatic profile (liver?) Renal, TFT (thyroid?) Anti TTG (Coeliac Disease)

Just one question - do any of you know if any of these are a test for milk/lactose intolerance. If not - will raise with paeds.

DD was thrilled to leave school early, ate dinner well at 4pm and then started evening runs to toilet during Location Location Location. She is deathly white again, and is sat up in bed fast asleep, with hot water bottle. We will lie her down flat in a bit. Basically, the same as every night for the last few weeks.

Thanks again for making me go in with a bit more umph than I would have done.

Glad you've managed to get some help OP.

ESR (erythrocyte sedimentation rate) and CRP are both general inflammatory markers. Neither tests for anything specific, but can help towards a diagnosis. Glucose will be to rule out diabetes, or indeed conditions which lead to low blood sugar. Hepatic profile looks at the liver as you supposed, and yes TFT is thyroid.

That's a really good range of blood tests. There isn't a blood test for milk intolerance unfortunately. The results will rarely give the answer alone, only in conjunction with the assessment by an experienced paediatrician.

Good luck. Don't stop pushing til she gets the help she needs. Take notes and speak up, sadly it's how you'll get the best treatment.

There is a simple test for lactose intolerance, and no it isn't in those tests you have listed. I'd ask.

Very glad you got taken seriously at last. I hope that you get some conclusive results.

My mistake. I've just checked and they give you milk or lactose to drink and then measure glucose levels to see if it goes up as it should. So purple is right, just ask.

So glad you are getting some action, best of luck and do keep us posted. Hope whatever it is , they get her feeling weller asap!

Another thought- I have Crohn's disease and when I was first diagnosed it was following some sort of throat infection. In the few months prior my immune system seemed to go haywire and I suffered one cold/flu type virus after another until I was laid up for a couple of weeks with a serious throat illness.

When I began eating again I suffered excruciating abdominal pains and vomiting, my symptoms got worse through the day, in the morning I felt more or less well again. So I just thought I'd mention the possibility of Crohn's as your daughter's symptoms were worse tonight after eating dinner.

The blood tests your doctor has ordered should shed some light if it were to be Crohn's, and confirmation is usually via colonoscopy and biopsy so similar to coeliac disease.

Op!!! I'm in a very similar boat.

DD, 10, has had 12 days off school since start of this term, initially a nasty virus. Then she had appendicitis type symptoms that then go away followed by general stomach pain, nausea, dizziness, lethargy, muscle aches.

GP has been great, ordered the same blood tests as your daughter is having. All came back normal, including coeliac test.

She's been fine for a week or so and blood test was last week. Thought everything was done and dusted, today she's so ill with same symptoms again. I'm so worried. Saw another gp who suspected appendicitis and told me to keep eye o her, those symptoms settled but everything else has kicked in with avengence!

So I've been googling (I know I shouldn't but I feel so desperate with it all) and there are so many similarities with M.E, I'm taking her back to GP tomorrow hopefully and asking for it to be investigated.

I also looked up Glandular Fever but symptoms are different.

I'm exhausted with it all quite frankly.

Crohnicallyfarting - your name made be chuckle!

I did push it home to the GP that I have ulcerative colitis (as does my Dad, Grandmother and a couple of aunts). I know it's not the same as Crohns - but I think it's autoimmune as well?

Although DD hasn't bled (which was how I was diagnosed at 15 yrs), I also remember lots of headaches and just not being able to throw off colds.

I've made a note about the lactose test.

Off to cry at Births, Deaths and Marriages

branston if you have UC and with that strong family history it is an immediate top suspect for your DD as are the other auto-immune gut link disorders like coeliac and crohns mentioned up thread.

Push push and push some more for the tests you need, biopsy might be needed. Diet changes may help.

The repeat anti-biotic swill have played havoc with her gut flora, and if combined with uc /cd / crohns she will be heavily deficient in all her trace nutrients. Lots of vitamins and pro-biotic needed as a start.

Let us know how you get on

UC and Crohn's are very closely related, they both fall under the umbrella term IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) and seem to have many of the same causes/triggers.

The main differences are in the type of inflammation (UC affects only one layer of bowel 'skin' whereas Crohn's can go right through the layers) and the location (UC affects only the colon, Crohn's can affect any part of the digestive tract from mouth to anus). This means that the symptoms can be very different, bleeding occurs less often in Crohn's than UC.

As it is the ileum (part of the small intestine next to the appendix) that is affected in me, my symptoms did mimic appendicitis at first- particularly the rebound test!- the main difference is I didn't go downhill as quickly as they would have expected had it been appendicitis. (The rebound test is where the doctor pushes his finger into your abdomen over the appendix, then quickly pulls it away. In appendicitis, it hurts more when his finger is removed!)

For a held the test for Lactose intolerance is usually done by testing a stool sample.
The sample has to be at the lab very quickly after being passed - so it ostensibly no good just dropping one in at the GP surgery to go in their lab collection However we have found this information - and details of how to do this - isn't always relayed to the person involved!

It is no good - not ostensibly!!

Argh. For a child.

They also often use the Hydrogen breath test for lactose, easy and non-invasive.

How is your dd doing branston ?
Did you get any news from the blood tests?

Poor thing. Any update?