Went to the Paediatric Gastroenterologist yesterday. He had the results of her bloods and faeces all were normal except the she does carry the coeliac gene factor. Which basically means although not a coeliac she can be sensitive to gluten. I don't understand it all completely yet, whether this means she may still develop coeliacs later in life, and/or whether she can pass this gene on to her kids and they may be coeliacs, I'm not sure. At least we were on the right track witht the gluten :-) He wants her to have a hydrogen breath test to see if she is dairy intolerant. Also he said he wanted to refer her to an alergist because she is in pain every night and wonders if in addition to gluten and dairy if she is alergic or intolerant to some other food which she is eating every day that does not agree with her. Also he wants her to have an endoscopy and colonoscopy done.
I said do you think this is ibs and he said he could not begin to give that diagnosis yet as it is a diagnosis of exclusion and he said he had not excluded every posibility.
He also said the barium swallow although didn't show inflammation does not rule out crohns the other endo or colonoscopy would be better for this.
He is still taking the whole thing very seriously and was lovely to us, my dad had colitis and both my sister have irritable bowel and I am dairy intolerant and so is my husband.
But the good news is she has put on 1 kg and has grown 1 cm in five weeks, I'm hoping she can keep the weight on this time.
We are pleased he is being thorough and not just brushing it under the 'irritable bowel carpet' as the Drs in the public system had done, sent us home told Gabrielle to take peppermint oil capsules, defocus herself from the pain and think happy thoughts (fabulous professional diagnosis eh)
Look the final diagnosis may be that it definitely is irritable bowel.
He didn't want me to do Heather's diet felt it was going to exclude too many things that she needs and that we were to concentrate on gluten and dairy only.
But I will keep to the principles of Heather's way of eating i.e. soluble mostly, no dairy, low fat, very little red meat rather than none etc. as I think there is definitely something in this way of eating.
Thanks for reading and once again thanks to you all for caring and posting and helping me feel 'not so alone' as a parent and thanks for never making me feel silly for asking some of the questions I do. Pauline
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Just back from Specialist - update on my daughter
