Can a child of four suffer from IBD?
My son, aged four has days where he seems to spend on the toilet, and others where he is perfectly fine. Ive seen the doctor about it and he suggested we cut down on the fibre in his diet, so he is now eating white bread and we are careful with the other things he eats, fruit, veg, cereals ect. I have just been browsing the web and found this website, could my son have a form of IBD? and if so, should I be taking him back to the doctor for further tests. Since he has been eating a lower fibre diet, his condition has greatly improved.
Hi Sam,
So sorry to hear your son is having such problems at so young an age. It's so hard to see your child suffer and not know the reason. However, it sounds like you've made some good changes and those changes could be leading you to the problem. Instead of looking at IBD first thing, talk to his pediatirician about the possibility that he has a food allergy or an intolerance to gluten, or possibly celiac sprue.
It's most likely that he has an intolerance to some food - wheat, gluten, dairy products like cow's milk, etc. Actual food allergies are rare and cause a very serious reaction like an anaphylactic response, closing of airways, severe swelling, etc. While food intolerances can cause annoying and sometimes severe symptoms like gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, nasal congestion, etc., they aren't life threatening.
Your doctor should be able to do some blood tests to check for things like celiac, but the best way to test for food allergies is to see an allergist who can give him a pick test for the most common foods people are allergic to, or you could do an elimination diet with him - see my blog on this from a month or so ago. Or, a very effective but low-tech way of identifying trigger foods it to keep a diary of everything that your son eats (and I mean everything), keep this up for about a month, and then look to see if you can make any correlation between things he eats and symptoms he gets.
Work with his doctor, though, and you should be able to figure this out.
Good luck. I hope he's feeling tip-top very soon.
Cheers,
Elizabeth
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The answer the expert gave is a great one. However, my child had all these tests done for allergies and on and on. Well, to answer your question through my daughters trying times, is Y E S! Make an appointment with a gastroenterologist and you don't need your dr's permission this is your child, and you will be amazed at what you will find.
Good Luck.
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