Crohn's in kids, getting doc to take you seriously?

I'm going to add a vote for the possibility of celiac disease, aka gluten-intolerant enteropathy. It causes stomach pain, diarrhea, and malnutrition. If this is the case, the damage will be in his small intestine, which is difficult to check medically. You should look for a pediatric gastroenterologist who is familiar with celiac disease.

I'm sorry your doctors aren't being more concerned. If you take your child off of wheat/gluten, you will find rapid improvement, if this is the case. The problem with this approach is, if you provide a gluten-free diet for a lengthy period of time and your son improves, it is difficult for the doctor to make a diagnosis later, as the intestinal damage and the immune problems correct themselves.

Nonetheless, I think it would be an interesting and humane experiment to provide a gluten-free diet for your son for a week or 2 and see what happens. Again, if gluten is the culprit, he will improve markedly and rapidly.

You probably need some more information on celiac disease, for which I recommend the Delphi Forums site, Celiac Disease On-Line Support Group, which is full of helpful people and advice. It is located here: http://forums.delphiforums.com/n/nav/start.asp?web...

I'm not discounting the possibility your son has Crohn's. But this is another thing to check, more likely than Crohn's in my opinion, and you can take your son off gluten immediately and see what happens--if you successfully eliminate all gluten from his diet, he will improve within 2 days.

There are lots of reasons for a child to be ill as you describe, and if he is not putting on weight then this is a problem.

the problem with looking up illnesses online is that many different illnesses give similar symptoms, and doctors are trained to recognise signs in context with other information, such as dielt, lifestyle, family history, tests and years od training and experience. For this reason, you should relax a little bit about the Crohn's deasese worry unless you have some kind of medical opinion to back it up.

But if your child is unwell you should certainly go to your doctor. Tell them about your concerns about the weight and development, and if they do not take you seriously then you should make another appointment with a different doctor. If they try to reassure you but you are skeptical and think you are being fobbed off, you should ask to see some information that backs up what they are telling you - they should have some reference materials around.

If things don't improve, or improve again and then get worse again, you should continue to go to the doctor. If your child is ill, you are not pushy if you take them to the doctor, and it is important for the doctor's records to show the recurring illness to help the diagnosis.

The best course of action is to get properly referred to a peadiatric unit through your family doctor. If you go to A&E and there is not an emergency, the hospital will not necessarily admit or treat you as they have real emergency cases that are life and death right this second, so may refer you back to your family doctor for treatment and advice anyway. Of course, if your child becomes very ill then you should seek emergency treatment.

Next time your son is ill, take him straight back to the surgery, or even A&E (he will be seen straight away as children take priority). If he truly has Crohn's he needs a blood test there and then to look for inflammatory markers. Obtaining a stool sample might be helpful too. Another method of diagnosis is a bit more invasive which is a colonoscopy but I'm not sure they would do that on a 4 year old. I must say I have never heard of anyone that young with Crohn's, but if he's ill he's ill and needs a second opinion. Good luck :)

I know the commercial you are talking about, it's for a show called "The Most Shocking" which isn't a TV show that you sit there and laugh about, it's just what it says it is, the most shocking footage they can find. No one is laughing at it. I also know the video, saw it way before it actually came out on most shocking, she was okay by the way, and she had gotten there because her mother wasn't holding her hand, maybe instead of yelling about the people that have watched it, yell about the mother who wasn't paying enough attention to her. She runs out there to get her of course after she gets hurt, but you can see the cell phone in her hand. So the big question is who lets their two year old daughter's hand go in a crowded subway, because that's where they were.

Get the doc to work him in for an appointment AT THE TIME when he is having these troubles. Doc should know that with several different bowl deseases, symptoms can come and go. Is he having blood in his stool? This could also be any number of bowel or stomach problems. Voice your concerns to your doc and if he doesnt listen, get a second oppinion.

Take him to a gastroenterologist. It could be Crohns or Colitis. If it's been over a year, there has to be something wrong.

Send him to the docs ill first . Then if what doc prescribes doesn't work ask for a second opinion .

Take a look at his diet...he could have a low intollerence for some food types, such as wheat? Maybe too much in his diet.

You need to see another Doctor - you have every right to have a 2nd opinion. If your son is really bad take him to A&E and he may be refered quicker

My son was diagnosis with Crohn's disease over 2 years ago. the doctor wanted to put him on Humira (after experimenting with several other drugs) which is anexpensive drug with life threating serious side affects. We did some research and wanted to take a new approach to combat His problem. This is what we found out. The liver is producing too much bile that is toxic to the digestive tract. The types of foods you need to eat are those that DO NOT create excessive acid or bile that help in digestion (simply put). The bile is normal unless it is in large quanity or toxic, the acid attacks the food as well as intestinal linings of your stomach

Your body is high in toxins that you need to remove and stop feeding into the problem by the foods you consume and an overactive liver.

1.) "Foods to eat" : water purified, fish, eggs, potatoes,rice, white bread,meat ground up fine or chewed well, skinless chicken cut fine, tortillas, broth, noodles plain with a little butter, plain yogurt with no extra ingredients, rice milk(rice dreams-Walmart) or Goats milk , cherrios, rice crispies or chex, plain oatmeal and 'most important' 5x/day at each meal and as a snack, legume's; black beans, kidney, pinto, buttered, refried, with no lard or spices except salt to start. Sunshine and calcium, with D'3, Iron supplements(in moderation) if you are anemic. When you are hungry eat!

2.) "Foods to avoid!": dairy!,milk (hard to digest a cow use 4 stomachs!) chips!,processed foods of any kind, fast food of any kind, soda ,msg,sugar,corn, corn syrup,corn sweeteners,wheat products,sweeteners of any kind, coffee, teas,sauces, read the back labels (you are going to be surprised) for added ingredients any thing thats added, adds to your body's toxic level. NO artificial sweeteners. foods that produce too much acid to break down the foods you eat. No alcohol of any kind NO Tabacco. fatty foods.

3.) 'Foods to eat': in moderation after you stop bleeding and start gaining weight or are having no discomfort : fruits,steak,venison, peanut butter or almond butter, more plain oatmeal A multi-vitamin with minerals with 100% RDA (not large dose's of any vitamins and 2x daily ,use shaklee as the bench mark for comparison ) of all of the B's, hard cheese, soy milk,well cooked vegetables" Psyillium powder".

4.)The beans, oatmeal and pysillium powder are a water soluble fiber that absorb bile and remove the toxins in your body,then the liver will produce more bile but less toxic(simplified for lack of space).

5.)This is not an all inclusive list and your Doctor will disagree with the elimination of drugs, all removal of drugs should be done slowly if you decide to stop taking them, but they will add to your body's toxic level as you continue take them. which will make your Crohn's worse and make you susceptible to other more serious disease's. I am not a specialist in any field or giving medical advice. I also hired KarenHurd.com at a fraction of the cost to teach my son to diet properly but you can go to her web site and get free information, but I recommend you pay her for a short time to get you healthy and on a routine faster. What I especially Like about Karen solutions are that they are simple, inexpensive and they work! Stress will make it worst so exercise and relax. Most importantly Faith, Hope, and Prayer, you will get better. God is faithful what ever the results. E-mail me if you have any questions and I can help. I don't know if you have crohn's but changing your diet could help you and most of us in America because of the poor nutrition we unknowingly subject ourselves too. colitis and IBS are similar but the diet still apply's. At 4years old He could have other problems because young children don't develop these problems bet you could start with following the diet change and watch for results