4 year old has constant tummy pain

[Batdad12]

Hi all, looking for any advice on this, and whether anyone has had similar.

4 year old dd has been complaining her tummy hurts. This has now been on and off since april, and its getting worse, its starting to hurt her a lot now. ive taken her to see the doctors twice, both times they prodded around and conclude theres nothing to worry about. surely this isnt right though? but if the doctors wont do anything theres not much i can do.

we did think it could be anxiety as shes started school this year, but shes settling in and enjoying it now so id have thought it should have passed by now if it were that.

I would go back and ask if it could be constipation or stomach migraines. I wouldn’t be happy for them to just ignore it as it’s ongoing.

Keep a diary of food, poos, reports of pain etc. and keep making GP appointments until you get somewhere.
With my 4 year old it’s always that she’s avoiding the toilet.

Thanks for the replies, called 111 yesterday and saw an out of hours doctor, she couldnt find anything specific but said that because of the long time its been occurring that i should nag my gp to get referred to a paediatrician

Ask for a blood test for coeliac

My 3-year-old was the same, always complaining of pain behind her belly button and she ended up in A and E a few times with vomiting/temps/not passing urine. She was referred to a paediatrician and had an ultrasound, Xray, blood tests etc and nothing showed up. Eventually, the consultant put it down to her having a few viruses that wiped out her digestive system and suggested we try and build it up with probiotics. She still complains on and off about tummy pain but it seems to have improved so I'm hoping that's what it is.

I was with an nhs dietician for low fodmap elimination diet for food intolerance/ IBS.

Someone recommended the 'my symptom diary' app. You log all your food and all your symptoms and bowl movements via the Bristol stool chart.

It was a game changer for me as it extrapolates the data. Not related to fodmaps but I realised after a while that certain foods triggered unquenchable thirst and headaches, as well as other food triggers.

Definitely keep pushing as this is not normal. Restrictive diets aren't recommended without medical support especially in children but GPs are very hit and miss. The first lot of advice I got about how to approach this was very wrong and I had to see another a gp to get access to the necessary support.

In the mean time if you can build up a diary of food and symptoms you can export it from the MSD app and share it with professionals.

Good luck

Any update @Batdad12? My niece was the same and she had an enlarged lymph node in her stomach. My DC have had this and both turned out to be coeliac, but we were told by 4 different doctors that they were just saying it as "that's what children do"...

Has she had her tonsils checked? My ds had constant pain in tummy..no sore throat.. After seeing a few doctors it emerged as very festered tonsils that were sending poisonous substance to his tummy. Had them out and never another pain.

apologies for going quiet on this. Junebirthdaygrl, thats really interesting, she did have tonsilitis a while back, and the nurse said her tonsils were huge. ill keep that at the back of my mind.

update is that we think it might be constipation, one of her friends has been having the same thing, turned out that she was resisting going for a poo at nursery and now school, preferring to wait until home, that causes some issues apparently, we got her some laxatives to try, and also booked in for a blood test.