So the G/I has decided that he wants to scope my 6 month old to find out what is going on. She is having green mucusy bowel movements. He says he is looking for damaged villi but not for celiac cause she is to little for that. My question is, has anyone had a baby this young scoped? It sounds pretty invasive and I really don't want to go that route. I am not even sure what it will accomplish. He has only decided to do this because we asked for a referral to Stanford.

Thanks

Sarah

Don't do it and wait for the other moms to click on. They will.

IMO, I would only let a GI specialist scope someone that small and even then, I'm not real sure about it. There is always the risk of perforation and then you've got a whole other set of problems. I'd go for other testing before I'd do that. Have you seen an allergist yet?

I don't understand why he said that he wasn't looking for Celiac because she is too young for that. There are plenty of parents here that have babies with Celiac. But my question is, what else is he looking for? Are the suspecting another illness to be the cause and is that why he wants to scope?

Nicole

My dr. is a G/I specialist but I have little faith in him. He flat out states that a child under the age of 8 months can't have celiac. We all know that is not true but try to get a dr. to change their mind. We have pretty much decided that we will get a second opinion and if they agree that scoping is the way to go then we will probably do that. I don't know what else to do at this point. It has been 4 months that we have been unable to figure out how to fix her issues.

If it is any comfort to you, my son was scoped at 4 years old and handled it very well. It wasn't a terrible experience for him.

Nicole

Is your child eating gluten? If so, has she had a blood test? I'd do the blood test for celiac. The scope sounds too invasive for a six month old. But, if she's had no gluten, then celiac wouldn't be the problem, which is why I asked about her eating gluten.

She is exclusively breastfeed and I have been gluten-free for about 4 months now. It seemed to correct the problem at first, then the bm issues returned. I realized I was eating gluten and cut it out but the bm has never returned to normal.

A six month old absolutely can have celiac disease. Are you breastfeeding your baby? If you are, and you are eating gluten, so does she. The same applies to dairy. A lot of babies are thought to be intolerant to breastmilk and are switched to formulas, when the problem is that the baby is intolerant to gluten and/or dairy or soy, and the mother is consuming these foods.

A breastfed baby eats what you eat. While breastfeeding my son I had to give up everything red, as it would cause him to have a raw bum, the skin would just peel off. That meant no strawberries, cherries, tomatoes (which I didn't know I was intolerant to at the time), peaches, red apples, rhubarb etc. for me that year. As long as I stayed away from naturally and artificially red foods, he was fine.

My oldest daughter's twins are intolerant to nightshades and dairy, and one of them to soy. They had terrible eczema and were not doing very well until she had them tested and stopped eating those foods while she was nursing them (a little over a year). Once she stopped eating those, their eczema cleared up, and they were much happier.

So, it might be gluten, or dairy or something else, or a combination. Rather than a scope on such a little baby (which will likely be negative anyway, as the baby is too small to have extensive damage to the villi yet) I would try an elimination diet for yourself if you are breastfeeding, or if she is eating solids, stop those altogether for a while and then reintroduce one at a time to look for reactions. If she is on formula, something in that might be the cause.

Oops, we were posting at the same time. Try eliminating dairy and soy to see if it helps, and if it doesn't, look for whatever else could be the cause.

I am already off dairy, soy, corn, eggs, gluten, citrus, nuts, and beans. Total elimination of the corn is new as of Monday, prior to that I was only off big corn ie. popcorn, corn chips and tried to stay away from corn syrup. I am not sure where else to go on the elimination diet at this point.

Oh goodness, you have already cut out the most common (and not so common) allergens! Try taking out nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant) next to see if it makes a difference. It could also be rice, unfortunately. I can't tolerate rice, either, as it's a grain. And I am intolerant to all grains.

Once her issues resolve (if you figure it out), you should try those foods you eliminated one at a time to see if she has a reaction. If she doesn't, put the food back into your diet. There is no need for you to take more foods out of your diet than necessary!

It could be a combination, too. One of my granddaughters can't tolerate grain with eggs (their mom uses an egg substitute when baking) or grain with tomato (no spaghetti with tomato sauce, or hamburgers with ketchup). Those are almost impossible to figure out on your own. My daughter had the whole family tested with a Vega machine by a naturopathic doctor.

Another daughter can't tolerate tomatoes with meat, or potatoes with meat. She is also intolerant to sugar and wheat. One son-in-law is also intolerant to sugar, it gives him awful eczema. He suffered from eczema all his life until he was 25. Now they sweeten everything with honey, and his eczema is gone completely!

I found out about my nightshade intolerance at the same place. Too bad the Vega machine (which isn't infallible) didn't pick up on gluten, as it would have saved me four or five years of illness. It did pick up on my combination though, which is fruit and grain. I had never been able to figure out what caused me to have hives covering my whole body along with feeling really ill and breathing difficulties until then (a systemic reaction for sure).

Which makes me realize why suddenly I feel bad and am in pain, I ate a glutino breakfast bar, which has rice, corn and fruit! Yikes, so much for my good advice . I ignored my grain intolerance and forgot about my combination one as well (blushing in shame).

Oh my that is a lot of possibilities. I am not sure how you cut out rice along with everything I have already cut out and still eat. If anybody can tell me, I would be willing to try it. We just found out we can go to Stanford though so that is exciting.

Congrats on the Stanford thing. I'm sure you feel better about that. I don't know what I would do if I couldn't eat rice either. That's pretty much what is sustaining me at this point. Katelyn is going through a growth spurt and nursing like crazy so I am STARVING!!!

Anyway....hope you get your appointment to Stanford soon!!

Heather

I live on rice as well. I use rice flour for tortillas and waffles and eat lots of rice with meat.

I don't like saying this, but seeing how much rice you eat, it makes it even more likely as a culprit. I will just eat vegetables and meat (and I have just a few veggies I can eat that aren't high in salicylates), and the only fruit I can eat is peeled pears, and the occasional golden delicious apple. No spices, no herbs, no honey, no teas other than chamomile, and the only oil I can use is cold pressed sunflower oil.

And usually I stick to it, or I pay like I do now. I've been doing this for two years, and it is possible without starving! But it is difficult, no doubt.

The only starch I can tolerate in moderation is light buckwheat flour. I react to every other starch.

But if you eliminate rice and it makes a difference, it is possible that some of the other foods you eliminated aren't really a problem (even though dairy, gluten and soy may well be).

You've eliminated so much . . . it sounds like a lot of it is "guessing" what it might be and if so, chances are you'll be able to add most of that back in. Based on what you said, you saw a definite improvement when you went off of the gluten. Did you notice any kind of improvement when you went off any of the others? Did you do them all at the same time? (I don't really know how you do the elimination diet, so excuse me if I ask silly questions?) When you went off of the gluten, what did you turn to as your main staple? Did you start eating a lot of something (like the rice) that you didn't used to eat much of before? I would look hard at whatever that was. Those are the questions I would ask myself.

I was following (some) on your previous thread (about breastfeeding). One of the responses was about your baby could have an alergy to milk protein (which would then mean an alergy to breast milk). I know that you don't want to give up breastfeeding. I mention it again so that anybody that is new to this thread can respond if they know of a way to test for that without having to just stop. Also, you may want to ask a doc if there is a way to test for it.

Dairy was definately a problem even the smallest amount caused scalding on her bottom, soy makes her spit up, she does not seem to tolerate corn although exactly how is still not clear, beans made her very gassy. The nuts we are off because my son has a cashew allergy so they said stay away from them and frankly it is the easiest. I have started adding back in egg in things like bread. She seems to be ok with that but it has been in very small portions. On Monday I took out all corn to see if we get anywhere with that, I was still using chicken broth with corn in it and drinking diet soda which I found out had corn syrup for coloring. They tested her for a milk allergy and it came back negetive. Not sure if that is the same thing you were asking about.

Sarah

I Googled "baby green mucousy bowel movement" and got this ... it's on www.justmommies.com



I know you cut out dairy, but I wanted to post this since the symptom fits.

Sarah, an allergy and an intolerance are not the same thing. You can test negative for a dairy allergy and be very intolerant to dairy. The same goes for gluten. Allergy testing will only catch immediate reactions, but will miss delayed ones. Obviously, you know that already, as you have seen the reaction she has to dairy.

It is extremely unlikely for any baby to really be intolerant to their own mother's milk. Too many mothers give up on breastfeeding, when in reality the problem is something they are eating themselves. I believe you are on the right track with the elimination diet. Keep up the detective work!

If a baby is allergic to their moms milk isn't that called PKU? If so she would have already been screened for that in the hospital after birth. Maybe it was the corn. Are you seeing any improvements yet? I'd give it another week and then maybe try the no rice option for 2 weeks to see if that makes a difference.

I'm so glad you are getting into the Standford Celiac Clinic, you will have to let me know how it goes.
Missed you today at Rori's party, hope all is well.

Janel

When are you going to the Celiac clinic?