Some (possibly) exciting news !

Warning: TMI in this post

This is Brock.

As most of you know, over the last 10 months or so, B has had some tummy problems. It all began at the end of May last year. B had what we thought was a stomach bug. Basically, (here’s the TMI) he was having several runny diapers a day. He had a stomach bug about 5 months before that, so we knew to try to wait it out again, do the BRAT diet, and start probiotics. At 2 weeks, I called the pedi. the told us to give it one more week and call them again. At 3 weeks, we called them back. This is when the testing began. We had to collect stool samples (nearly impossible due to the wateryness and totally disgusting!). They tested him for just about everything you can think of. Everything came back normal.

This is when we first learned that Celiac Disease could be the cause. While we waited for a GI appointment and later some scopes, we switched him to a gluten free diet. It seemed to help, so we stuck with it. His diapers were not normal, but not nearly as bad as they had been. At 15 months old, B went in for a colonoscopy and an endoscopy. Again, everything came back normal. So, we reintroduced gluten and dairy. Didn’t make problems worse, but didn’t make them better either.

We’ve been to the GI doc twice since November and everything, according to her, is pointing to toddler/functional diarrhea. Basically, he’s just going to have the poops until he outgrows it. Could be soon, could be a few years. Right now, we’re waiting on him to turn 2 and then planning on testing for food allergy/sensitivities. I just want to rule out EVERYTHING before we say, “Fine, it’s just something weird he’ll outgrow….”

Well, we are very happy (can’t you tell?) to report that for the past 4 days, B has had solid poos!! 4 straight days. Now, this could be a fluke and they could go back to disgusting at any moment, but for now, I’m taking it as answered prayers. I will continue to pray that we get it all straightened out, though. #1. It can’t be fun to have yucky diapers all the time  and #2. This mama does not even want to think about potty training while he has bad poos!

For now, I just wanted to share the excitement. I know some of you were waiting an update. I can’t think of a better one than this.

Brock Update

Most of you know that earlier this summer, Brock had some stomach issues going on. Basically 5-6 weeks of disgusting diapers. The doc ran a bunch of tests and they all came back fine. She told us that she wanted to run a Celiac panel on him to check for Celiac Disease. People with Celiac Disease have to be on gluten free diets, so after the doc took his blood we put him on a gluten free (GF) diet. Within 24-48 hours of going GF, we started noticing a huge improvement in his diapers (poo). That next week, I thought that maybe it was a coincidence that his diapers cleared up about the same time we went GF, so I gave him food with gluten. Big mistake!! So, the rest of summer (Since beginning of July) he has been o a GF diet. I wouldn’t say is poo is “normal” but definitely way, way, way better than before. The Celiac panel came back negative, but it can be negative and he could still have Celiac disease. The only true way to test is by a biopsy of part of the intestine.

August 15th, we went to a GI doc who we were referred to by our pedi. The doc was at Children’s Mercy here in KC and she was FABULOUS! I can’t say enough good things about that place. She checked him all out and took in all of his medical history. I told her all about his breathing/asthma issues. She listened to his breathing which was normal that day. She noticed he had dark circles under his eyes and asked how long they’d been there. Um, always?! She also asked about eczema, which I told her he does get some patches now and then. She said that all of these things combined leads her to believe that there is some allergy. Just what? She took some stool samples while we were there and also ran another Celiac Panel. All of these tests came back normal as well.

For now, he’s on a dairy free and GF diet. He drinks soy milk right now. Once we determine that he does okay with the soy, we’ll re-introduce whole milk and see how he does. If he does well with the whole milk, we will try to re-introduce gluten into his diet. If every time we introduce gluten he has issues, then we’ll talk about doing the biopsy. Fun, huh? We still have no real answers, but the dairy free and GF diet is working for us, so I’m not too worried.

No blog post is complete without photos, so here are some recents of Brock :)