To think this is a dairy allergy/intolerance?

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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.

My daughter has several allergies, including dairy and my son used to be egg. I have IBD, crohns to be exact, but was told I had IBS for years. My calprotectin was low for 8 years, and my blood inflammatory blood markers weren't always high either (Crp/esr). I would have diarrhea, vomiting sometimes, then constipation, gurgling noise and tummy pain.

I'm not saying your son has this, but could be worth loking in to and asking for the camera or pill cam. At the same time asking for skin prick or blood tests at the hospital for allergies might help to rule things out. I would keep a food and poo diary. With the poo you are looking at the Bristol stool chart for consistency, then looking for mucus, colour, frequency.

It took me 9 years to get diagnosed as I was fobbed off constantly. I'm just hoping you gather the rumight information and push for the right referrals so your little one doesn't suffer.

My daughter with one of her 12 allergies gets just tummy pain and frequent toilets with normal consistency.

Hope you manage to get some help.

Thank you. I am so so worried about him and just feel like I’ve been fobbed off by the GP when I went back asking for something to help him with the pain. I got asked if I thought it was behavioural 😣 I know it’s not!

I'm not sure I'd advocate this route for a child, but DH has been having "random" toilet issues and stomach cramps since having covid 2 years ago.
We linked most of them to eating out, and then suddenly twigged it was more dairy than eating out - DS2 and I aren't keen on dairy, and so we don't eat masses of the stuff anyway.
He has been properly dairy free since the autumn, with lactase tablets for the occasions where e.g. he desperately wants homemade Christmas cake (made before the dairy thing came to light), and the stomach cramps have totally dissapeared and the bathroom is much less toxic!!!

It could well be an intolerance to something. I don't know what the guidance is for self diagnosis by cutting out food groups. Probably not advised without dietician input - but the timelines might be too long.

I’m going to try and get a GP appointment tomorrow.

Lactose intolerance? I get horrendous pain, to the point I have been in hospital (pre diagnosis) terrible wind. Loose stools. Cut out dairy and only have lactose free dairy now. Life changing! Little man has my sympathies.

Niece has a dairy allergy. Full Anaphylaxis, epi pen, severe skin rash.

His stools have only just started to be loose. I’ve got an appointment this morning for him so hoping they will listen to my concerns.