5 year old with persistent diarrhoea

[Greenturlte]

My 5 year old regularly has loose bowel movements, with around 50% of them being loose. We’ve been to the doctor, and a stool sample was tested, but they couldn’t find any obvious cause.
He doesn’t seem to be in any pain, and his height and weight are normal for his age. I do sometimes worry that his energy levels are a little lower than they should be, although at other times he’s full of energy.
I felt like things had improved over the past few months, but his symptoms have become worse again this week. I haven’t been able to identify any clear links with particular foods, and we haven’t tried any strict elimination diets yet.
Has anyone else experienced anything similar with their child? I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences or any suggestions about what might be causing it, or what might be worth asking the doctor to investigate next.

I would ask for blood or allergy tests. Are there any celiacs in your family? Or anyone who is lactose intolerant?

Yes, we have. In my DC’s (6) case it seems to be from fruit juices. It’s to do with the fructose not having long enough in the bowels (I’m no expert, so maybe look that up yourself.) Eating actual fruit is fine, because the fibre in fruit compensates the effect, but if they have any juice, even small amounts, it starts again. Apparently they grow out of it as the gut matures.

I was so relieved when I found the cause as I was worried about all sorts of food intolerances. Fruit juice is relatively easy to avoid.

Sounds like an allergy

M daughter had diarrhoea as a baby and it was a cow’s milk protein intolerance.
While she outgrew it, she says if she has a latte or a hot chocolate now it “has an effect” so to speak.
Could this be the issue. Children who are allergic to CMP often also have a soya allergy.

what are his poos like the rest of the time?

@AlliuminBloom Interesting, how did you find out it was fruit juices?

They are often a bit loose, but sometimes normal

@mugglewump i think we do need to start elimination diet. Yes my husband is lactose intolerant so lactose is the obvious place to start! My cousin is has coeliac, not sure if that’s relevant.

The loose stools would come an go, sometimes they were fine for days, so I decided to keep a food diary first before eliminating anything to see if I could find a pattern. I was most worried about gluten and lactose, but felt they were eating both almost daily, so that didnt make sense. I googled for other possible causes and fruit juices came up, so decided to eleminate those first. LO had gotten into the habit of drinking quite a bit of pure orange or apple juice, maybe half a glass a day, but sometimes none for days, just because we had run out. It was also the summer and we had made ice pops using juice a lot, so I felt that could be an option. Eliminating the juice made a massive difference straight away and then I basically tested if it would come back if they drank some again and it did.

Now we sometimes offer watered down pure orange/apple, but mostly stay clear. It’s been such an improvement for LO, as they also would have accidents sometimes, which have completely gone.

Coeliac can be hereditary, you could have the genes but not have the disease. Maybe worth mentioning to GP about your family history.

when you say normal, how big? and you don't need to answer cos I sound like a poo pervert but I'm wondering if it could be overflow if he's constipated? I didn't think DS could possibly be constipated cos he did humongous poos but apparently that's still a thing so something to consider if his poos are big solid log type things.

perhaps look into ‘toddler’s diarrhoea’. It described what my child had pretty well.