SUDDEN CRYING IN PAIN, DISTENDED TUMMY, SOLVED BY A RENNIE??

[hippipotami]

This is what is happening to 5 year old dd. She is quite an anxious little girl, I have posted about her before.
She is also a bad eater, eating very small portions before deciding she is full.
For the past few months, intermittently, she will suddenly cry out in pain, saying her tummy hurts. She says it hurts 'all over' her tummy, not a specific point. Her tummy will become all distended, not unlike those poor African children on tv. When tapped, her tummy sounds 'hollow' (that is the best way I can describe it)
We gave her a Rennie in sheer desperation tonight. Within half an hour the pain had stopped, she did a couple of big burps, and her swollen tummy went down.

So, now we know what solves the problem, how about what causes it??
Dh thinks she is producing too much stomach acid as she does not eat enough. Is that plausible?

Help please?

Oh yes, forgot to add, she has for as long as I can remember not pood properly - she goes daily, but it always resembles large rabbit droppings, rarely a softish properly formed poo. (sorry if tmi)

I would get her checked out sounds a bit like colic , I got it at 28 years old and it bloody hurts

Hope she feels better soon

Colic sounds possible, indeed it fits rather well. But what causes it? In a baby I understand about taking in air whilst drinking etc, but in a 5 year old??

I still get that occasionally, and went through a bad phase during my a-levels which I suppose was partly due to stress.

If you are stressed and try to eat then you can swallow more air than normal. Also you do produce more acid when you get stressed. The extra acid make you gassy and it is extremely painful when it gets to a certain point, so I really feel for you poor girl.

The not eating enough might play a part if she keeps producing acid after not having much to eat. Is she losing weight/ underweight/low in energy?

Giving rennie won't harm her as it is only calcium and magnesium, but occasionally people can build up a tolerance to them with excessive use, but it's uncommon

Could she be intolerant of something she's eaten such as dairy?

Let us know how you get on.

Keep a food diary. See when these gassy events occur. Could it be possibly be a food intolerance?

They appear when she has not eaten much, for instance she gets very anxious when at friend's houses for tea and does not eat. So will knock tea at friend's houses on the head for a while and will keep a food diary incase it is an intolerance.

In the meantime, does anyone have any other ideas??

hello hippi - the swallowing air thing occurred to me -can't really think of anything else though - food diary sounds like a good idea ...xxx

The swallowing air thing makes sense, as she has recently adding a 'breathing' tic to her repertoire of oddities.

Combine that with not eating a lot. She does eat a lot of fruit, but as the doctor pointed out last night (we rang out of hours doc for advice when she was screaming in pain), fruit is acidic and would contribute to the excess stomach acid in E's tum.

So I thought I was doing a good thing, encouraging her to fill up on fruit etc, but obviously not
So homemade cakes, homemade bread etc seems to be the way to go!! Hopefully it will make a difference.

i get this when i eat bananas, eggs and mushrooms, so could be food related. rubbing the tummy helps or lying flat face down until it subsides. poor thing.

Ah, thank you Eggs and mushrooms not much of a problem as she hardly eats them, but she loves bananas and eats one every evening. The pain also occurs in the evening....[lighbulb moment]

Will cut out the banana in addition to encouraging her to eat better meals.

avcoid cucumber/melon too

Ah, cucumber, a big E favourite. Melon less so, so that one is easy to avoid...

I have just seen this

This is what happens to me if I have full-fat milk in anything, even a teaspoon

Might be worth eliminating if it becomes a long-term problem