Tummy Troubles

The text of a facebook message I sent to a friend in light of her son's suspected irritable bowel syndrome. Good to capture in writing what Caris has been dealing with these past 2+ years:


"Our daughter's troubles started around Feb/March of 2007. Several bouts of vomiting that we will never know if they are linked to the ongoing stuff or not. . . it was around the time of the e-coli scare with peanut butter, and we did consume 2 of the affected jars as a family. . . but who knows if that's linked either.

The pediatricians did all the tests they could over the course of about 2 months to figure out why my happy, energetic child became a groaner, complainer and non-stop "swallower." Several months of prevacid on the assumption that it might be reflux did seem to alleviate a little of her complaining. That was just a band-aid while we waited until September to see the specialist. One of our best friends is even a gastroenterologist. . .but for adults. No clout with the few pediatric GI docs around here.

Anyway, after long months of waiting and then all day (it seemed like) of waiting in the GI doc's office, the nurse asked me a ton of questions and poked Caris' belly a little. Then the MD came in and asked a few more questions and said, "Let's schedule her for a scope."

I was beyond angry, because I could have asked for a scope in March!! The GI doctor never even touched my 4 year-old, and the whole thing just made me mad. Meanwhile, Caris would go for a few weeks of moaning at meal times and saying, "My tummy won't let me run," or "I don't feel like doing that." Very sad.

After talking it over and thinking through things, we decided to schedule an appt. with the OTHER GI doctor in town - at ACH. That meant more waiting. He took all kinds of stool cultures, did a bowel ultrasound, and eventually an upper GI contrast test. Yucky. There was evidence of inflammation, which was why the reflux meds were helping a bit, but still not Caris' main problem. All very frustrating, and that takes us to Sept 2008.

We did end up having Caris scoped (under general anesthesia), and the results were non-definitive. Some swelling and areas of inflammation, yet nothing specificallly diagnosable.

The GI doctor determined that, though very rare in children, Caris was dealing with Irritable Bowel. As I now understand it, the only real way to treat her issues of "small bowel overgrowth" (way too much of a good thing down there) is to have her take antibiotics about 10 days out of every month, in order to "knock down" the too high level of good bacteria. It then takes about 3-4 weeks to build back up and the cycle starts again with another round of antibiotics.

We did that for 3-4 months beginning in January, and once the MD began to see some positive changes in Caris' attitude/pain level, he suggested trying to recolonize her gut with a different good bacteria. This is usually done with prescription probiotics, but we have started these past 6-8 weeks by giving her the YoPlus digestive yogurt EVERY DAY. He has said as long as she's not complaining, we'll assume these over the counter probiotics are doing the trick of maintaining a healthy balance in the bacteria.

I'm not saying Caris never complains anymore, but she's tumbling and generally happy again. That's progress after over 2 years of questions!

I know this is a VERY long message - sorry about that. I'll just have to save it myself to remind us of all Caris has endured. But perhaps it will give you the right questions to ask in seeking out tests. . . or maybe you could skip all of that and spend a little on the daily probiotics (yogurt is not the only option. . . there are others). It's worth a try!

Hope Elijah is feeling better again really soon!! I understand what you're going through.

Take care,
wendy"