# frustrated mom....sick 12 yr old.



## okgardengurl (Jan 22, 2013)

already frustrated and it's only been 3 weeks!

i suspect my 12 yr old son has had this for 2-3 years! 2 years ago (5th grade), b, had / has random headaches. we had his eyes checked , various vitamins/minerals / mri / increased water for dehydration, sinus medications, hot showers, naps, etc. there has always been random stomach pain of some sort...."pooping" is a big deal around here! b's pooping schedule over rides any timelines! i have never really considered it to be anything because it always seemed to be relieved by pooping...or maybe, in hindsite...he's just a really good kid and it's just never been persistant enough for him to complain long enough that i paid attention? b is in 7th grade this year and his stomach aches and headaches are truly affecting our life now. i have checked him out of school more this year for stomach ache and headaches than all the other years. b and i finally clue into how much this is affecting his life and make a dr appt!

we began keeping a food journal and started probiotic before the 1st dr appt. he takes otc zyrtec d or claritin d and tylenol/ibuprofen for his headaches. b complains about needing to "poop" and not being able to....or having diarrhea!

*1st appt with family dr:* citrucel, probiotic and levisin sl was given. never asked to see the food journal or any food correlations. ordered blood and stool test. dr talks with b about being anxious in school; math and wrestling. possible IBS.

*blood and stool test* normal except for barely elevated total bilirubin of 1.5.

ordered abdominal (gallbladder/liver/pancreas) ultrasound.

abdominal ultrasound is normal.

*2nd reck appt with family dr: *i have 3 weeks of pretty extensive food journals now and still doesn't ask to see them or if i have noticed a food correlation. advised him that levisin sl does not seem to be working. family dr talks with b about being anxious in school. recommends paxil 10 mg, 1 q day. he sees that i am not overjoyed about giving my 12 yr old an antidepressant, talks at length about how some medications have a primary and secondary reason for being used. i take the prescription, have it filled, give him 1, he has "weird" body responses that day so decide not to give him any more. mentioned the constant headaches again.

we have an appt march 19 with a pediatric gi dr... 6 weeks away...my son is hurting and miserable! we have elimated all milk/dairy products, red meat. b is losing weight and i can actually see that his personality is changing because he is miserable. he's barely eating because he is afraid to eat. i am going to call monday to see if i can get an appt with someone before march 19. what now? any suggestions?

*daily meds: *

citrucel x twice day.

probiotic.

levisin sl 1-2 as needed when stomach is really hurting. (he doesn't think it helps)

tylenol/ibuprofen as needed for headache

zyrtec d /claritin d, daily (i originally thought the headaches were sinus/allery headaches)...but, idk now.

helpless mom...


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## Pepper H (Jan 3, 2013)

Maybe relax and help you son to relax as well? It's the most effective thing to do with IBS. It's awesome that you take such good care of your son, but be very careful that your axieties do not rub off on him. He might already be very anxious himself, that tends to be a side effect of IBS.

He is very young and needs you by his side, but with IBS there is no need to rush into anything, he just needs to find "what works for him" to relieve his symptoms, and you can help him through the food diaries and meal planning and everything. If there was a definite cure for IBS, I guess most of us wouldn't even be here, we would be cured. Since your son is so young, you have such an impact on him as his mother that my advice would be to take is as easy as you can, because if he's in pain, he doesn't need some more anxiety on the top of that, and if you're anxious about him, it will impact your own life and you will be miserable for him, that's most a the time a good recipe for some family drama, and I'm sure you don't want that.

Just so you understand who this piece of advice is coming from, I'm now nearly 22 and for all my teenage year, my loving and concerned mother took care of all my health issues, maybe a bit too personally and I could see that she was suffering through me and for me - and I didn't want that. She became more and more anxious about everything that happened to me and thus made me even more anxious that I already was. Now when I come home, I'm glad and we're still on very very good terms, but I can't get into her car without a dreadful fit of IBS.

I'm not making any general statement, but as a mother, the important thing to you can be to make sure that everyone in the family feels fine, and that includes you. If your son notices that you are very concerned and you love him, but not to the point of over-anxiety, it might calm him down and he might feel a lot better. Feeling relaxed helps a lot to relieve the pain and cramping in IBS. You say that you had to check him out of school many times, but if you son actually has IBS this will become a regular thing, and it is not his fault. As frustrating as it may seem, someone with IBS has to adapt his life to his condition, or the IBS gets worse and worse. I'm not saying that he should check out of school whenever he feels like it, but when he's in pain, sometimes there's no solution. However, it's important for a kid this age to stay in the school system and see other kids regularly or otherwise he might find difficult to connect with people when he reaches adulthood, and IBS really doesn't help with that.

You seem to be doing a pretty good job, so keep going to the doctor's and maybe they'll find something that can help your son, but in the meantime, both of you can try to relax because it really really helps. Breathing deeply and slowly, listening to some music, anything that works for you is good.


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## Dennis N (Feb 5, 2013)

Has your son been tested for heavy metal poisoning? (These would include hair, blood, and urine tests).


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## Betty424 (Feb 9, 2013)

This sounds a little like what I've gone through with my 15 yr old. She has had stomach aches and headaches for 2 years. Her primary problem has been constipation. The doctors talked a lot about stress, schedules ... finally referred to a specialist a few weeks ago. He thinks it's SIBO (small intedtine bacterial overgrowth). He put her on the SCD diet (but with added whole grains - he said this is a recent change for SIBO). This diet was developed by Elaine Gottschall, a biochemist, and her book is Breaking the Vicious Cycle. She has to be on it for 2 years but should see results in a month. He had her to take the breath test but we don't have the results yet. SIBO is different from IBS but apparently have good results with the same diet from what I've read. Best of luck to you - hope you can get to the specialist soon.


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## dkaj (Feb 16, 2013)

Hi Frustrated Mom,

I am right there with you and have been trying to figure out my daughter's issues for 7 years, have had multiple tests run on my daughter because she had food rugurgitating up into her mouth, some reflux with chest pain, some small amounts of vomitting, chronic constipation, and stomach bloating.

After having an endoscopy, 24 hour impedience test and gastric delay study done on my daughter, barium enema and barium swollow study over a period of 3 years, docs have only said to feed her a healthy diet, and she had no signs of reflux, or damage to the insides or imflamation. She was diagnosed with airophagia which means she is swallowing air, which can bring on the rumination/regurgitation, so started doing the diaphramatic breathing training with her, to prevent the air swollowing. Everything was going well, so decided to open up her diet, and this is when I started putting correlations together, because I started trying to increase her fiber through various fiber supplements and reading all ingredients on these fiber supplements.

Thus, I will tell you what I have learned along the way, as my daughter had problems with a stuffy nose also, almost every night but not during the day, and then then did have some seasonal allergies.

#1. When a person takes claritin or zyrtek, this is systemic, which means it dries out the whole body, not just the nose. Our pediatrician recommended the prescription allergy nose spray, vs taking an allergy pill, since my daughter already had constipation problems and it can make constipation worse. The nose spray is local mainly to the nose, and not systemic. Now, you can get a generic prescription nose spray, called flucitasone proprianate (flonase) and it is much cheaper than Rhincort nose spray which is non-generic.

#2Have you had your child checked for environmental allergies along with food allergies/intolerances? if your pediatrician is not willing to refer you to an allergy specialist, and you can self refer yourself through your insurance, I would do it. The skin test they do is not painful. They no longer use needles, it is more of a scratch test, and both of my kids have had it done, and it did help weed things out a little for us. My daughter ended up having a strong reaction to cockroaches. We had none in our house, as it was a bran new house, but we had alot of cardboard boxes around from the move, that had sat in an external storage site, and even though there were no bugs in the boxes, their saliva and feces can be in the boxes and a person wouldn't even see it. Thus, we removed all cardboard boxes from the house, and it helped a bunch. Last time she was retested, her numbers went down to almost zero for a reaction to cockroaches. The other thing to think about is dust mites and mold. These are things you can't even see, but if you live in an apartment or older home with any leaks from over the years, this could be a cause. you can buy dust mite pillow and matress covers. In regards to the food testing, the skin testing may be a better route for testing food intolerances vs the blood test. My daughter never had anaplaxic reactions to food or any hives, which would be considered a food allergy, but people can still have an intolerance which the skin test may pick up on, but even that is not 100% Now, the skins testing is expensive, but it may help weed things out for you. pricing depends on your insurance and how that all works when you see a specialist.

Migranes can be caused by food intolerances. Does your child have eczema at all? Eczema can be a sign of food intolerance and it may be a way to determine through your journaling if he has a flare up with it, if there is a connection between food and eczema and/or migranes. Other thing is, detergents and soaps, and smells can bring on migranes too. I would buy all hypoallergenic body soap (dove has a hypoallergenic soap) / hypoallergenic laundry detergent, fabric softeners and hypoallergenic laundry sheets. Also, use hypoallergenic hand lotions and see if this helps.

One thing I have figured out is that my daughter has problems with sugar alcohols. These will make her tummy bloat and I am slowly figuring out that her aerophagia is happening, because when her tummy bloats up she is having a hard time getting her air, because the bloating is putting pressure on her diaphram and lungs, and then she starts taking the deep chest breaths which puts more air in her tummy, and makes the bloating worse. It's a cylce. I have tried several different fiber supplements to help with her constipation, , and alot of them have sugar alcohol's in them, which I didn't catch before. I couldn't figure out why certain drinks would bother her. Well, artifical sweetners and sugar alcohol's can bother people who have IBS. Sugar alcohols include sorbitol, xylitol, manitol, erythitol. Here is an artical with a more complete list and info on it:

http://blogs.webmd.com/healthy-recipe-doctor/2010/03/the-dirty-little-secret-of-sugar-free-products.html Thus, check your citracil and see if it has a sugar alcohol in it. Fiber supplements are a tough one, because people sometimes have to try several different ones, to see which one works for them and doesn't cause them stomach problems. Look at each ingredient on the fiber supplement, and look it up to see what it actually is. Another option would be to go to mirilax, which is not a fiber supplement, but helps draw water to the stool and bulk. You do have to drink alot of water with it, just as when increasing fiber, because your water is being drawn to the stools. The other thing with the fiber, how much are you giving him. Increasing fiber too quickly can cause stomach pain in itself. You have to do this very slowly and doing twice a day is better than giving it to them all at once. But it sounds like you are doing this already. Start with 1 tsp or less 2 x a day or even less than this depending on how much fiber is in each teaspoon.

Other thing to be aware of is chicory root fiber. More and more companies are putting it into things to increase fiber content of cereals and high fiber bars. The worst culprit is Fiber One products and I believe kashi puts it in their cereals also. Sometimes it is called inulin along with other names on ingredient labels. Here's just one link about chicory root fiber, and believe me, if you type in chicory root fiber and stomach pain, many sites will come up with others having much more info on affects with people who have IBS. This was a study of healthy people without IBS. I have IBS and fiber one bars will put me on the ground with gas pains that shoot through me like knives.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/07/08/us-popular-food-additive-can-cause-stoma-idUSTRE6675QC20100708

I would say, best to stay away from processed foods as much as possible. Food labels are so hard to decifer with so many food additives and one never really knows what they are to be able to even figure what might be bothering a person, because like with chicory root fiber, it can have 3 other names for it.

One word about docs, is that many of them have little knowledge of food intolerances just the allergies. Many, and I'm not saying all, will diagnose by handing out meds, to see if they help, but don't really want to get to the source of the problem, just hand out the pills. I totally agree with you on not giving the depression meds to your son. If your son is anxious or depressed, it's because he is in pain, which anyone would be. That is a cop out for the doc, it's like he's not validating your son's pain. Now, if this all came on suddenly, one might wander if something is going on at school, is he being bullied, etc b/c sometimes situations like this can definitely bring on stomach distress, but I would think you've asked him about this already, and even if this was the case, psych meds are not the answer, it's finding out for sure if there are problems at school or outside of school. Pscyh meds have alot of side effects, and a person has to be really careful with them. In regards to school, you might want to ask his teacher if they have noticed anything going on at school that might be causing your son stress and to pay special attention to this. I know my son had problems in 4th grade with his stomach, missed a bunch of school, and I asked him at least 10 times and he denied any problems at school, but I could tell he was not his happy self and whenever we left school he had this sad fareaway look on his face, like something was wrong. Well, when I went to conferences the first time, I knew why. The teacher in herself was very strict and even scared me, and the group of boys in the class were not a good influence and there was alot of bullying going on, which my son was the target of. Once we figured that all out, his stomach got better, but that was not a fun year. He would have burning diarreah because of the stress, and he was screaming in absolute pain, whenever it happened. It was horrible. And he got to the point where almost all foods he normally could eat, he couldnot eat anymore. Talk about the brain/stomach connection with my son's case. We even did a celiac blood test and stomach x-rays on him. both were negative for any problems.

Best wishes to you and I hope you are getting some answers by now, if not, keep plugging away and a dietician at a local hyvee may be the best to give you tips on food intolerance info, foods related to migranes, etc or going to see an integrative medicine doctor (they specialize in nutrition and are an MD also).


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