Warning - lots of discussion of poo. Sorry!
My DS is 15 weeks old and has seemed to suffer with digestive issues since birth. He's had bad wind and no matter how much I burp him he seems to have a lot of bottom wind. He also seems very sensitive to bowel movements and can wriggle, grunt and squirm for hours before doing a poo. This seems to really frustrate him and he ends up in tears. He also seems to have to suck in order to pass the fart/poo, either on his fists, my hand or my breast. He generally poos 2-4 times a day, which is usually yellow bf poo, sometimes quite runny. However, sometimes he doesn't go for more than 24h. On these occasions he will squirm like he is constipated until he goes, but his poo will be normal. He can also be distressed at times, crying and shouting in the lead up to going. I was hoping things would improve as he got bigger but they haven't yet. In fact things are worse at night. He can often be up a lot of the night wriggling and squirming until he poos in the morning, often going a couple of times before lunch. We are cosleeping as he won't settle in his moses basket so I'm not getting much sleep due to the squirming and my nipples are in shreds as he wants to suck all the time (feeding and then just sucking).
He also has occasions where he is inconsolably crying for about 10/15 mins about half an hour before doing a poo. During these periods we noticed a firm bulge on the right if his groin and so he is now being referred to the hospital to determine if this is a hernia.
I had been thinking that a lot of these issues we're due to his digestive system being immature but now that he is a bit older I worry there is something irritating his tummy or causing him distress. He's exclusively bf and I am already on a dairy free diet due to milk protein intolerance. I try to keep my diet simple and haven't noticed any obvious dietary reactions but I am keeping a food diary.
Does anyone have any experience of symptoms like this? Does it sound like an intolerance? I thought he'd maybe have other symptoms if this was the case? Anyone any other ideas or experience of when things might improve?
Also, re the hernia, I thought these we're painless but his does seem to cause pain at times. Is this normal? It's not constant pain, it does pass but feel so sorry for my little guy. I did wonder if this is causing him some discomfort a lot of the time, leading to all the squirming and grunting etc but not sure how plausible that is.
Sorry for the essay, any suggestions/comments/advice welcome :) Thanks!