Trying To Fix My Child's Digestive Issues

somuch4food

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My child is 15 months old with an egg allergy, though his blood levels are low. The allergy was discovered at 6 months of age and he was breastfed until last month. He reacted to breastmilk for the first 6 months: mucus in stool from time to time and regular regurgitation. He has some eczema and his stools vary greatly. He eats about anything I give him, no problem on that front.

Most people around me say he is fine, but he does not like to be still for much time, rarely seems focused and is somewhat fussy (cries often not for long). I think he has digestive issues that are not being corrected.

He sleeps though the night, but does not always wake up refreshed. I also had a lot of trouble putting him to sleep before he went to daycare. In retrospect, I think he might be because of digestive pains.

Yesterday, I gave him panna cotta (milk jello). Shortly after, he was passing gas like crazy and had a bowel movement. I will continue this week and see if it helps.

Also, since birth, his toe nails are in bad shape.
 

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Blossom

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I'm sorry, it's been 28 years since I've had a baby so I'm afraid I'm not up on the latest.

One thing I'd be curious about though is what he is being fed in daycare. I worked for a short while at a daycare about 30 years ago and the one I worked at fed the children the cheapest and most convenient food possible. It's somewhat understandable because they had a lot of kids to feed, limited staff and as a business they obviously wanted to maximize profits. I'm pretty sure if I had a baby in daycare today I'd provide all of their food!

@scarlettsmum may also have some input.
 
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somuch4food

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One thing I'd be curious about though is what he is being fed in daycare

They use a caterer service for lunch and snacks are fruits, yogourt and sometimes crackers.

What kinds of things are you giving him?

For breakfast, it's either oatmeal or buckwheat pancakes with fruits.

Snacks are fruits, yogourt, cheese, and recently homemade jello.

Lunch and dinner are whatever we are eating usually potatoes/rice/wheat with some animal protein and vegetables.

He gets milk three times a day.

I started applying some magnesium oil since I'm pretty sure I have been deficient for a long time and might explain his weak nails.
 
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somuch4food

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He had roseolla not long after the last post and his skin problems took a turn for the worst. He got urticaria from polyester and his eczema is now worst.
 
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somuch4food

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I have found some relief for my toddler. I first identified carrots as a big trigger for his eczema. He hasn't eaten any since and only has some spots remaining. His belly is now much smoother.

He's now eating a low A diet that includes dairy at home, but still get some A veggies/fruits at the daycare.

This week, I realized that milk seems to be a big culprit for his unsettled sleep. A few weeks ago, we did not have milk at home and it was his best week ever. It took me a while to realize that it was the absence of milk that made such a difference. We are on day 2 of no milk and today, he was much happier.

He's doing ok with yogourt and cheese, so I don't have to worry about calcium.

We'll see if this clears the last eczema spots and the slight diarrhea.
 

Beastmode

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I have found some relief for my toddler. I first identified carrots as a big trigger for his eczema. He hasn't eaten any since and only has some spots remaining. His belly is now much smoother.

He's now eating a low A diet that includes dairy at home, but still get some A veggies/fruits at the daycare.

This week, I realized that milk seems to be a big culprit for his unsettled sleep. A few weeks ago, we did not have milk at home and it was his best week ever. It took me a while to realize that it was the absence of milk that made such a difference. We are on day 2 of no milk and today, he was much happier.

He's doing ok with yogourt and cheese, so I don't have to worry about calcium.

We'll see if this clears the last eczema spots and the slight diarrhea.

Our little one is a few months older and we've been dealing with her digestive issues for most of her life. Very interesting on the elimination of milk being significant. Might be worth trying it ourselves.

What kind of milk were you giving the toddler?
 
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somuch4food

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great that you are identifying cause-and-effect and thanks for sharing your findings.

The detective work is not easy since there are so many variables at play. If my experience can help others, I'm happy to share.

I'm finding intuitive eating really powerful. We have been taught to use our mind to control our body and slowly we stopped listening to the signals it sends us.
 
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somuch4food

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What kind of milk were you giving the toddler?

I've toyed with homo, non-homo and organic, not organic a few months back. No raw since it cannot be legally acquired in Canada. He seemed better with non homo, so there might be something to the homogenization process.

He was still getting carrots back then, so I might have had misidentified.
 
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somuch4food

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@BEASTMODE I don't know what you have tried, but what helped me the most was identifying how his behavior changed when he was unwell.

Being hyperactive and unfocused, attention seeking (mischief) and wanting to eat all the time are his most obvious patterns.

A few months back, those were present every single day. I had only some glimpses of his normal behavior. I was not accepting his behavior as normal though and was desperately looking for ways to get more of those glimpses.

Most people would attribute this to being a toddler, but my intuition was not accepting this.
 

Beastmode

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@BEASTMODE I don't know what you have tried, but what helped me the most was identifying how his behavior changed when he was unwell.

Being hyperactive and unfocused, attention seeking (mischief) and wanting to eat all the time are his most obvious patterns.

A few months back, those were present every single day. I had only some glimpses of his normal behavior. I was not accepting his behavior as normal though and was desperately looking for ways to get more of those glimpses.

Most people would attribute this to being a toddler, but my intuition was not accepting this.

We're in the same boat of thinking. We don't follow the common stereotypes like that. From a behavior standpoint, we're pretty "spot on" with what's making her fussy/irritable/needing to be held all the time/etc. We just haven't nailed down the constipation and sleep issue just yet. We may try eliminating her goat milk again for while to see if that makes any changes.

I meant to ask before, have you had your toddler's thyroid checked?
 
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somuch4food

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I meant to ask before, have you had your toddler's thyroid checked?

No, he's growing like crazy and hitting his milestones, so it's more of a personal investigation for him to thrive instead of getting by.

At his worse, he got cold hands on some days, but now he's warm most of the time again.

What would be signs of thyroid problems in toddlers?
 

Beastmode

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No, he's growing like crazy and hitting his milestones, so it's more of a personal investigation for him to thrive instead of getting by.

At his worse, he got cold hands on some days, but now he's warm most of the time again.

What would be signs of thyroid problems in toddlers?

Such a hard question to answer as it's so paradoxal with hypothyroidism regarding symptoms. Our child had a lot of seemingly, unrelated symptoms according to our former pediatrician (i.e- slow growth rate, nails were brittle with a few spoon shaped, dermatitis on scalp, borderline anemia, low body temperature, etc.) I think it's more about seeing the patterns, like you mentioned, and experimenting.

Like I shared, our's is doing really well minus those 2 last sticking points (constipation and not sleeping through the night.)

All the examples I shared with our last pediatrician have completely vanished since taking the appropriate steps with her thyroid.

The "standard" way is to get a thyroid panel that includes reverse t3 if there's to be any chance of a medical professional to "potentially" help.
 
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somuch4food

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It would seem it's not the proteins or sugars in the milk that are problematic, but rather the added D3.

The yogourt I usually buy is not fortified while all milk is required to be fortified with D3.

What brought on this suspicion is that my partner bought a yogourt for himself and last night, I gave this one to my toddler and he had a huge crisis a bedtime and woke up crying seemingly from abdominal pain at 3am. Then, this morning I noticed that the other yogourt has added D while mine does not.

I will attempt the yogourt on another day to confirm, or invalidate this hypothesis.

If it turns out to be true, I would say poor thing since I used drops while breastfeeding and then switch to whole milk with added D3. No wonder his digestive issues never resolved. D3 is not the usual suspect, but I have found a few articles that correlates with his symptoms.
 
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somuch4food

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I have had some bad experiences this week.

My toddler ate a lot of canned olives and woke up crying as in pain after his nap. I gave some frozen berries and it seemed to help him a lot. He's also been waking up early since last week.

Then, yesterday, he was sick and ate a lot of yogourt and cheese. He cried a bit in his sleep and woke up for the day at 3:30am. He was wired and didn't want me to leave him alone.

Since he's always congested with watery eyes, I got back on searching histamine intolerance and it seems to fit the bill quite well.

I will be exploring this avenue further. So far, quercetin, vitamin C and unrefined sea salt seem to be good supplement.

Glutathione : Reverse Your Inflammation | Alison Vickery
 
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somuch4food

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I seem to have found his main issue. I've been making changes towards a lower histamine diet and he's back to sleeping until 6:30am, is much easier to put down to sleep and seems overall a much happier kid. The diarrhea is still there though, but I'm hoping it will eventually go away as he further improves.

I've implemented mostly those changes: more apples and applesauce (for quercetin) as snacks, less processed foods (I've been making more homemade muffins and cookies) and a whey protein/berries smoothie in the morning. I've also bought some salt without iodine in it since it seems to be a big no-no with histamine issues.

He's had red cheeks and red ears many times since his birth. I now think they're one of the first symptoms of him having had too much histamine. He woke up from a nap with a red ear over the weekend after having a meal that did contain some histamine. I will be juggling around to try and gauge his tolerance threshold since it's impossible to 100% control a toddler's diet without going to war.
 

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Eczema is typically vaccine damage, and the rest of the issues seem like that too. I would look into recovering from vaccine damage, especially dealing with aluminium. Ask here before doing anything you might consider risky.
 
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somuch4food

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Eczema is typically vaccine damage, and the rest of the issues seem like that too. I would look into recovering from vaccine damage, especially dealing with aluminium. Ask here before doing anything you might consider risky.

That's too simplistic. I don't buy into vaccines as the cause of all modern problems. They probably do contribute to metabolic damage and inflammation, but they're certainly not the only problem of our modern world. I'm believing in a more global theory. It's the addition of all those traumas that result in a broken metabolism, health issues and inability to heal. Sure there's bad stuff in vaccines, but even the food supply is polluted with pesticides, PUFAs, additives and fortification.

He's had these problems since birth way before he had any vaccines. After one of his vaccines, he even became better, just saying.

FYI I wouldn't ask here about doing anything risky since I wouldn't even consider it at all on a non verbal toddler. I have not pushed those issues with my GP since I do not want to fall into an overmedication protocol. He's still growing well and seems really smart, I just want him to feel his best.
 

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