What is wrong with my little one?

[MelissaM]

I'm starting to feel like we should be on mystery diagnosis. Here are her symptoms:

 

slow growth and weight gain (she is not on the growth chart at all; has been given "failure to thrive' status.)

 

slow teething

 

frequent vomiting (rarely projectile. smells very strong of bile)

 

has regular bms, diarrhea, and constipation with no apparent rhyme or reason.

 

chronic irritability, especially after sleeping- naps and night

 

she often smells weird (not a good weird), even after a bath, lotion, teeth brushing, and ear cleaning. I don't know how to describe it.

 

We have done testing for pituitary and thyroid problems. She is scheduled for allergy testing this next Tues. I've tried googling but haven't had much luck. Celiacs is the closest I've come.

 

Any ideas?

[JudoMom]

Have they done a barium thing to rule out acid reflux? I would think that could explain all of the symptoms except teething.

 

I hope you find an answer soon :grouphug:.

[MelissaM]

This is the 2 year old.

 

FWIW, I had a high risk pregnancy, but she was only 4 weeks early. Other than being a few weeks behind developmentally for a few months she did not have any problems. Everything hit the fan when I tried to start solids. I tried at 6 months then stopped because she reacted violently. We started again at 9 months and she tolerated fruits/vegs. We began meats at 12 months. She continued to have grain issues (prolonged vomiting) until around 18 months.

 

Would an allergy present all those signs?

[Jennifer in MI]

Has she been tested for reflux? I'm thinking that many of the issues could be because of that.

 

How does she act, besides irritable after sleeping? Is she meeting developmental milestones?

 

How is her breathing? Have they run a cystic fibrosis test? I only ask because they ran a test on my ds when he was younger (he had breathing issues) and in doing my research, I found that most kids are small and have digestive issues.

 

Oh - I hope you get this figured out!! Of course, it all could be nothing! You may just have a little peanut! How big is she? I have a 21 pounds 2 year old who is also off the charts.

 

Edited to add (after your next post) that, yes, allergies can definately present like this!!! It could explain all those issues.

[MelissaM]

My next route after food testing will be pitching a fit for reflux testing.

[MelissaM]

She is 19 pounds. Her frame is small though so she doesn't look emaciated. She just looks wee.

 

She is caught up developmentally. Her speech is average or above.

 

Her breathing itself is fine. She does have a *constant* runny nose (since she was 6 months old) and frequent colds. We haven't tested for CF.

[LNC]

I would definately rule out the reflux as well as how she fast she empties her stomach. That would be the simplest explanation. I'm not sure what exactly you mean by the odor or the extent or any developmental delay but you may ask for a screening of metabolic disorders. There are many that would cause distinct odors that a geneticist would be familiar with... http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition=maplesyrupurinedisease for example.

HTH.. Try not to worry. But I would check it out if your momma instinct is warning you too!

[battlemaiden]

I was going to throw out Cystic Fibrosis. It's an easy test. I'd have it done ASAP to rule out.

 

Jo

[Marie in Oh]

Please look into Celiac-- she sounds so much like my 3.5 yo at 18 months-- she was failure to thrive (16 lbs at 12 months, 17 lbs at 18 months), chronic diarrhea, wasn't walking yet, and fussy, fussy, fussy. She also had a strange odor, she was losing her hair, and she had a strange skin rash. It was the allergist that finally said Cleiac and sent her to the GI. THis was my 4 week early and things hit the fan when starting solids girl. She was just slowing deteriorating. It was painful to watch. After we removed gluten for her diet she changed drastically for the better. She gained 9 lbs in 6 months, started walking in 3 weeks, and her disposition changed dramatically. Even though she is still my handful, I think that alot has to do with her rough start. They say Celiac like other autoimmune disorders are triggered by a stressor. Sometimes it doesn't show up till later in life. I almost wonder if it was the stress of her birth. Sounds like you had a similar situation. It could be worth pursuing.

[Parrothead]

I'd say some kind of allergy or digestive problem. Gluten allergies can cause a lot of the symptoms you discribed, and so can celiac.

[Oak Knoll Mom]

I was going to throw out Cystic Fibrosis. It's an easy test. I'd have it done ASAP to rule out.

 

Jo

 

That's the first thing I thought of too.

[Lisa in Jax]

Your description sounds a LOT like food allergies to me.

 

I'd rule out celiac disease first, and persue comprehensive food allergy testing as well. Be aware that even if your dd doesn't have celiac disease, she might still have wheat/gluten allergies. Other than true celiac disease, wheat/gluten allergies/intolerance may be hard to detect with testing. So, if the celiac test is negative, I'd still do a 1-2 month trial of a gluten- and casein- (dairy) free diet.

 

My kids had food allergies that included gluten/wheat and casein/dairy. They had lots of weird symptoms, including weird smelling and sweaty hair after naps/sleeping, difficulty sleeping, alternative diarrhea/constipation, behavioral problems, slow growth and learning issues. All of the symptoms got better when we removed gluten and casein. The weird smell completely disappeared.

 

HIH,

 

Lisa

[Chris in VA]

Please have her tested for celiac and Cystic Fibrosis as soon as you can. In the meantime, could you just stop giving her the grains that are a problem?

 

Does she "taste salty?" That's a sign of CF. My bro has it--he was small for his age, had terrible bm's (bulky but loose most of the time--didn't metabolize fat well), caught a lot of colds (they thought he had allergies, but CF makes mucous sticky, and it can't do it's job of getting germs out of the body--and it clogs stuff up, too) and just didn't look well a lot of the time. But he just turned 50 last week--and he's doing really, really well.

[Mom0012]

Celiac disease is what I was going to suggest looking into.

 

Lisa

[amary]

Cystic Fibrosis or a wheat allergy? We went through something similar with my son. Nothing was found and eventually the symptoms went away.

[abbeyej]

My first thought was celiac, but reflux could also be a possibility. Have they ruled out diabetes?

 

But still, celiac is what my mind leapt to as you were writing. Food allergies is certainly a possibility (I have a child with food allergies and not celiac), but I'd want to rule out celiac before much else.

[Storm Bay]

Rule out the easy ones first as mentioned, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was celiac or food allergies, digestive issues. But keep on it until you get an answer! As I understand it, vomiting can be the result of allergies, but certainly not always!

[beansprouts]

Oh Melissa! It definitely sounds like something is going on with your little girl. Celiacs came to mind for me as well. I hope you are able to find the answer very soon :grouphug:

[Carol in Cal.]

I do have a niece who had a lot of these symptoms and it turned out that one of her lungs was not hooked up to her heart. This was repaired surgically and everything is fine now except that she will need another operation to put in a bigger tube for adult-size blood flow when she is older.

 

In the olden days, she would have had a heart attack by the time she was 6 or so, very likely. It is great what they can do now!

[susie in tx]

Just a reminder. If you decide to do the testing for celiac, do not take your child off of wheat products prior to testing. It *can* skew the results.

 

Personally, we had great results from eliminating gluten from our diets.

[Alice]

Celiac, cystic fibrosis, food allergies and reflux are all good ideas.

 

I would also agree with the poster who mentioned testing for Metabolic Disorders. The funny smell is the concerning thing there. A lot of metabolic disorders give a funny smell (a bunch give a smell of "sweaty socks") and moms are often the ones to notice it more than anyone else. Fairly easy to test for, it's just bloodwork and a urine test.

[Quad Shot Academy]

That sounds so much like my youngest. He spit up a lot as an infant. He started vomiting entire feedings at about 5 months, so we started solids "early", compared to the older kids. That is when it got really bad. He would scream for 24 hour periods after eating, he would have spells of looking violently ill for 20 minutes, then would barf and be fine, until the next time he ate. . .he became failure to thrive very quickly. From 6 months on he was scoped upper and lower, had intestinal biopsies, put on every allergy diet, had a hernia from the muscle strain of vomiting sewed up, tested for every metabolic disease, most twice, cystic fibrosis 3 times. At age 19 months he had a CT scan of his pancreas because undigested fats were passing in his stool. In the upper corner they saw that the ducts in his liver were dilated, which usually means severe gallstones. An ultra sound confirmed this. At 20 months he had his gallbladder removed and a biopsy of his liver. The liver biopsy showed minor damage from the pressure of the bile backing up for almost two years, so another round of metabolic tests was done. All were negative. A week after the surgery I saw a huge leap in his development; he wasn't in pain anymore so he started to thrive. He is 24 months now and has NO vomiting and is in perfect health. He was in the 75% for height and 40% for weight just last week.

 

I will cut it short now since my reply is so long, but don't give up looking for a "cure". Get all new doctors for fresh ideas, if need be. An ultrasound for gallstones takes 10 minutes and costs $100 versus all the other tests where the baby has to be unconscious and costs thousands. You are in my prayers, PM me anytime.