Help For My 10 Yr Old Daughter Please!

[dannibo]

Hi all-- first let me thank you all for having this site. I'm so grateful all the knowledge.

I'm desperate to get help for my daughter who just turned 10. She's had digestive issues her whole life and has been through many tests by allergists, gastroentologists, hepotogists, etc. Except for some food sensitivities, nothing has ever come back abnormal.

In the past 3 years she's gained a considerable amount of weight and her abdomen is pretty large even though she hasn't really changed her eating habits! She eats a wide variety of foods, very little processed and grains (she just prefers other things).

She's always had trouble with digestive and constipation, but just yesterday she was crying and immobile with pain. I thought it may have been something she ate so I gave her activated charcoal and Benadryl in case it was an allergic reaction.

I'm keeping track of everything she's eating today and it happened again. She's in severe abdominal pain. Nothing she ate was out of the ordinary for her. I just don't know what to do. My poor baby girl is suffering and I have not been able to help her after all these years.

If anyone has advice of what I can do, where I can go, etc. . . I would be ever so grateful.

Thank you,
Jill

Sorry for your babies troubles. Did your child suffer any kind of food poisoning?

 

[lexis]

As in the nightshades, those kind of peppers?

Tiny bit of green capsicum

 

[EIRE24]

Tiny bit of green capsicum

why green?

 

[Jill]

Wouldn't this effect, in and of itself, tell Jill something though about her daughter's glucose metabolism? Or is there something unique about childhood that makes it "normal" to become hyper from having sugar?

Yes! And isn't it a myth about kids and sugar? I believe it's the vilification and parental restriction of sugar that creates this learned behavior in kids. My husband remembers as a kid how the adults would make comments about how hyper he'll get any time he ate something sugary. So he thought he had to live up to their expectations and would purposely act crazy!

 

[Jill]

Seems she has undigested fibre.

Cooked bamboo shoots and green pepper may help.

Would you know what causes undigested fiber in the first place? It seems like anything she eats causes her digestive distress! She does eat green pepper too, but raw. Should they be cooked?

 

[Jill]

Elimination diet - eat nothing but safe foods for a month like bananas, mangos, raspberries, coconut, sweet potato. Then introduce a test food every 3 days to see if there is an instant or delayed reaction to it.

Some common problem foods include wheat, rye, kidney beans, seed oils, tomatoes, peppers, white potato, milk, soy, spinach...

Finally eliminate your original safe foods for a month and replace them with your proven safe foods. Finally test the original safe foods.

Andrew Perlot did this to manage his Crohn's disease.

I actually did this some years ago. Even had her tested for celiac (negative) but even with the elimination diet she still had problems. She tested allergic to peanuts and sesame so we have eliminated that, but it's probably worth it doing an elimination diet again. It's my own anxiety around it that I'm trying to avoid!

 

[Giraffe]

One more thought:

I normally do not tend towards constipation, but if I feel the urge to visit the loo, I need to go within a couple of minutes or I risk to not go for the rest of the day or even several days.

@Jill, you might want to check with your daughter if she faces such situations. To give a few examples:

• Eating triggers bowel movements, but politeness (at least where I live) dictates that you don't leave the table before everyone else has finished their meals. So you have to wait.
• The restrooms in public places can be disgusting. Something else (a bad experience?) deters people from using restrooms in public places. So they wait until they are at home.
  
• A teacher does not allow the kids to leave the classroom, or the kid is too embarrassed to ask for a permission.

I am mentioning this because I think something like this could be a contributing factor.

 

[Jill]

Sorry for your babies troubles. Did your child suffer any kind of food poisoning?

Thank you for your concern. I thought that too maybe but my other kids had the same food and were just fine. It was so weird! And then her stomach bothered her the next morning after she ate eggs (they never bothered her before) so I was thinking her stomach was just so irritated and sensitive at that point that i think anything she'd have eaten would've caused her pain.

 

[Jill]

One more thought:

I normally do not tend towards constipation, but if I feel the urge to visit the loo, I need to go within a couple of minutes or I risk to not go for the rest of the day or even several days.

@Jill, you might want to check with your daughter if she faces such situations. To give a few examples:

• Eating triggers bowel movements, but politeness (at least where I live) dictates that you don't leave the table before everyone else has finished their meals. So you have to wait.
• The restrooms in public places can be disgusting. Something else (a bad experience?) deters people from using restrooms in public places. So they wait until they are at home.
  
• A teacher does not allow the kids to leave the classroom, or the kid is too embarrassed to ask for a permission.

I am mentioning this because I think something like this could be a contributing factor.

Yes, her holding it in was definitely an issue when she was much younger but it hasn't been for some years now. She does have issues with porta-pottys but will use public restrooms thankfully. And we homeschool so I'm grateful she doesn't have those bad experiences with the restrooms in a school setting!

Her life is relatively stress-free (as much as is possible!) and that's why her issues are so perplexing to me!

Thank you again your help and input.

 

[Jill]

Other thoughts:
Is your daughter getting regular sunlight on her skin? This is important for the cells in the body being able to keep producing energy well, for all their functions.
Some regular movement in some form - eg at least a bit of walking every day, not necessarily anything extreme?

Breathing relaxed, nasal and diaphragmatic or tense, mouth and chest?

A couple of other articles of Peat's - possibly food for thought in there?

Vegetables, etc.—Who Defines Food?

Food-junk and some mystery ailments: Fatigue, Alzheimer's, Colitis, Immunodeficiency. Carrageenan


I'm sure you are doing what you can in these areas, but anything that helps relieve life stress may help? Playing, laughing, solving problems that are worrying her, doing fun stuff together ...

I forgot to add that we are extremely pale-skinned. And I grew up being made terrified of the sun and burn easily. I'm trying to not be so alarmist about the sun for my kids, but they also burn easily. Is there a way to increase their tolerability?

 

[Jill]

Do you mean the kind of potty little children use? If yes, you don't need it. Just give her something to rest her feet on, like a small stool or a water bucket you turn upside down.

Actually the squatty potty is a fancy expensive version of a small stool or bucket. At that point, I was throwing my money at anything I thought would help.

 

[Mito]

She tested low for Vit D. I do give her Vitamin D3 pills but not consistently. Any suggestions to increase?

Do you recall what her 25(OH)D test level was?

 

[redlight]

G

I've seen a couple functional doctors in the past that told me to give up sugar, dairy and coffee and didnt go back. And after finding Ray Peat a few years ago, it confirmed my instincts. I need to find a Peaty doc!

did you follow any of thei advice?

 

[redlight]

Why does a 10 year old need coffee?

 

[DrJ]

The only thing I haven't seen mentioned that might help is glycine. It's really protective to the intestine, and seems to help keep things moving regularly. Avoiding fiber helped me by far the most, and also starches (but others have mentioned this). I can pretty easily avoid fiber, but sometimes it's hard to completely avoid starches. Glycine is found in gelatin, (almost 1/3 glycine by weight) and bone broth. I actually just take straight glycine, 5g/day as maintenance dose. It helps me tolerate starches more. If I ever get really constipated, then a large dose of glycine usually clears it up quite quickly (30-60min). At least 10g, sometimes 20g; you might need to experiment. I've taken up to 60g to experiment, which the first time caused me to feel like my entire abdomen was being relaxed as if it had been under some incredible tension without me being aware. It was pretty amazing, and hard to convey how incredibly better I felt afterward. Later 60g doses didn't seem to do so much, but I assume because maintenance doses have helped keep my intestine in a more relaxed state. Up to 100g glycine/day has been used to treat schizophrenics with no ill effects, so it seems quite safe. As others have mentioned, cascara sagrada can help, but I've found it difficult to find the right dose, and it seems to make me lose minerals too much. For reference in dosing, I'm 77kg.

 

[kaybb]

Could it be gall bladder problems? I don't know if she is too young for this problem but when my gall bladder was bad ....any food could trigger an attack. At its worst, before I had it removed... I was on apple juice and water only. Then water gave me an attack and I was put in the hospital with IV fluids while I waited for surgery. You may have ruled this out, so just an idea...

 

[Emstar1892]

Thank you. My kids have coke and have never hyper-reacted. She's also had 1-2 ounces of coffee for about six months when she was 3. Never affected her negatively. It may help that they're free to move and play all day.
I did notice her digestive issues increase when she'd eat kimchi several times a day for many days in a row, so we've cut back the amount. But she's also gone months without any and unfortunately her digestive issues persist.

Aw so sorry to hear that I do hope you find answers. At least she has a mother who's working as hard as you!

 

[Mito]

Up to 100g glycine/day has been used to treat schizophrenics with no ill effects, so it seems quite safe.

Forum member Pakpik posted recently about glycine's immunosuppressive effects at high doses. Wooo's "Progesterone, The Master Hormone Myth"
"I have been simultaneously been experimenting with other things that can drive estrogen levels down like high-dose K2 and glycine.
I've been aware for a long time now that glycine has very powerful immunosuppressive effects. Again, like with any other agent with such immunosuppressive power, good judgement is required when and if used to avoid worsening of the condition. I personally restrict glycine to no more than once a week in very small doses because my personal situation so has required it (glycine worsened my infections if I did it more frequently, and lead to further shut down of my already low immunity).

In this study they compare glycine to betamethasone (Note: betamethasone is considered one of the most powerful corticosteroids in existence).

Modification of immune response by glycine in animals. - PubMed - NCBI

"Glycine (50, 100 and 300 mg/kg), administered daily for 10 days in rabbits challenged with typhoid 'H' antigen and sheep erythrocyte antigen, caused dose- dependent reduction of antibody titre. Inhibition of antibody titre observed with 300 mg/kg was comparable to immunosuppression observed with 1 mg/kg betamethasone."

In this study, they suggest that glycine can be used as an immunosuppressant in the setting of organ transplantation! That tells a lot about the immunosuppressive power of glycine.

Glycine Inhibits Growth of T Lymphocytes by an IL-2-Independent Mechanism | The Journal of Immunology

"Data presented here demonstrate that glycine has immunosuppressive effects and suggest that it could be used in combination with reduced doses of cyclosporin A to maintain effective immunosuppression and prevent rejection of transplanted organs."

As for the mechanisms, there are several, but one important one is the powerful induction of the immunosuppressive cytokine Interleukin-10 (Il-10). If so desired, anyone can research the science databases on that subject to learn about that."

 

[Jill]

G

did you follow any of thei advice?

I did. Over 5 years ago when I myself started eating Paleo and feeling awful, I found a family functional doctor. She gave the same advice to both my daughter and me -- that I must be doing Paleo "wrong" and to keep doing it but further restrict certain foods (nightshades, coffee, etc) to find the problem. And of course my daughter was sick because she wasn't eating Paleo! She also wanted her to cut all dairy, all grains, all sugars, limiting fruits to only berries occasionally. . . She was 5!!! That's just crazy. What this doctor had no interest in learning about was the level of stress I was under, having three kids who were at the time 7, 5, and 2 with chronic health issues. She had predetermined prescription of Paleo eating for all.

I found another functional doctor. He also went the route of Paleo-eating as the solution but was a little less heavy-handed about it. My health was deteriorating with Paleo (went low-carb too and was breast-feeding at the time!) and I did my best to provide and cook Paleo-only meals for my family and no one thrived. What came first- the stress of eating this way or the stress of trying to follow this ultra restrictive diet? I don't know. But whatever health benefits we derived from the food were quickly overrode by our collective stress!

I'd love to find a doctor to work with me as much of this information is beyond my understanding, but I'm little leary. Any suggestions?

 

[Jill]

Aw so sorry to hear that I do hope you find answers. At least she has a mother who's working as hard as you!

Thank you for that! I'm feeling like a failure having not found a solution but I won't give up.