Intolerance? Anaemia?

[Eolian]

Will try to make this fairly brief... 11 year old dd. Has always been skinny and pale since coming out of toddlerhood. Has always had a tendency to occasional tummy aches and nausea. Lately this has been getting more frequent, accompanied by gurgly stomach. She's also even paler than usual and is not sleeping well (takes ages to get to sleep, wakes up v. early). I was also wondering about anaemia, which is also a common side-effect of an intolerance and can cause sleeping problems and is apparently also associated with growth spurts, which she's definitely had lately.

The tiredness after a poor night's sleep and the occasional queasiness are making her not feel like going to school (even though all seems to be going well at school). I should add - she also has form for being a bit of a hypochondriac to get out of doing things she doesn't want to do!

She's got an appointment with the gp on Wednesday but the vagueness and intermittentness of symptoms make me unsure of whether I'll be fobbed off (especially as dh thinks she's making a fuss or putting it on and that I'm barking up the wrong tree thinking it's an intolerance - but he's not known for his sympathetic attitude)!

So do these symptoms sound like she might have an intolerance? And if so, what advice might I expect from the doctor?

Sorry - not that brief after all.

[Oldmum55]

Glad your daughter has an appointment with the GP. I guess s/he will order a blood test to start with and then s/he'll go from there. If you mention the stomach symptoms and your concerns about intolerance, they'll probably test for coeliac. It could be intolerance, or possibly sensitivity or nothing specific. But I always believe in checking to put your mind at rest.

[eggsandwich]

Your Dd sounds like my Dd when she hit 13 she started complaining of stomach aches was always tired and even when she went to bed early she was still tired the next day.
My Dd has always had a pale completion, but it's only now when I look at photos of her one in particular of when she was a bridesmaid that I can see how extremely pale and washed out she looked and also quite thin, I'm really annoyed at myself that I never took her to the gp sooner.
After blood tests the results were that she was extremely anemic and was also tested quite highly as having coeliac disease, we are now a couple of years down the line, she still gets anemic which she is at the moment and is on iron and also has a vitamin d dificency which she is on tablets for despite eating really well, but she is monitored regularly and looks really well. My advice would go with your gut instinct and get her checked out.

[Eolian]

Thanks for the replies! We saw the doctor today and dd is booked in for blood tests on Friday. I didn't say what I thought might be wrong, we just listed the symptoms and the gp said straight away that she'd test for coeliac.

eggsandwich - yes that sounds just like dd. I hope she's not coeliac, but on the other hand at least a diagnosis would mean we could actually do something to make her feel better!

[eggsandwich]

Hopefully you get an answer, and what I will say is should she test positive to coeliac disease there is so much help out there, since it's become a bit of a fad diet you can pick up a lot of gluten free foods from the supermarkets now, and eating out is a lot better than it use to be, still room for improvement but it's getting there.