SOS

[Anonymous]

hello everyone! i didn’t know what to title this particular post, and ‘SOS’ just seemed fitting. WE NEED SOME HELP.

madelyn is 9 months and is a dream. her digestive system, however…not so much. i have been on a very restricted diet for a loooong time. i can eat chicken, quinoa, raisins, mangoes, lettuce, potatoes, a very simple salad drsg. if i deviate, she doesn’t poop, has a very difficult time sleeping, generally refluxy, etc. she’s gotten better as she’s aged, but we’ve tried so many things to help her and we’ve come up short. i’m really interested in digestive enzymes, but have not had success in finding any without fillers (ANY fillers bother her, including rice, papaya leaves, etc). we did a small stint on ones with papaya leaves (thus how i know they bother her) and the first week was fabulous! she slept great, ate great and overall was even happier than ever (she’s generally just a happy happy baby, praise to God). by the start of the second week you could tell something was bugging her and i had a suspicion it was the papaya leaves. once i stopped the enzymes, she got better. while i wasn’t able to deviate hugely in my diet, even while on the enzymes (i was being really cautious), after we stopped them i noticed i was able to make small infractions and she wouldn’t be a mess like she used to be. this is not the case anymore and i’m so frustrated. we went to her 9 mos appt and she’s fallen from the 25th % for weight to the 5th%. her ped says she’s FTT, which is sooo not what i see when i look at her. she’s active, smiley, eats well, has shiney hair, long nails i have to cut constantly, her elimination is good most times, she meets her milestones, etc. she stayed in the 25th% for height and has grown out of a lot of stuff simply in the length. she still has her rolls . when i think about it too much, i just see no end in sight and i stress. we’ve tried some solids at 6 mos and that was a failure. we decided to wait until now and have had some small reactions with sweet pots and squash. i would LOVE LOVE LOVE any info you guys have on enzymes and other thoughts to move her gut in the right direction. i know she responds well to them b/c she did in the past, we just didn’t have the right kind. above all, i KNOW she’s healthy but would love for that to be more reflective in her growth. if i’m really honest, as well, i would LVE to have a broader diet. i could still be dairy free and soy free and have a new lease on life!

anyhoo, thanks in advance to getting this far! you guys rock. any help is beyond appreciated.

gina

[Anonymous]

gina, over what period of time did she drop in the percentile rank? as good as she sounds like she is doing, she may just be small and it took a little while for her body to find it’s zone.

[Anonymous]

So good to hear from you Gina! Sorry I don’t have good advice, but wanted to say “hello”!!!

[Anonymous]

thanks for resonding! christine, i was hoping you would ‘weigh in’ on the FTT…she was 25th% at her 6 mos, then 5th% at her 9 mos. dan’s g-ma was only 4′ 11″, my mom is only 5′, i’m only 5′ 2″ and one hundred # and some change…it really fires me up when i hear a doc say she’s got some ‘growth issues’. also, riley was only 25th% until he was almost three. he didn’t drop percentiles, but he definitely takes after dan…very tall and SOLID. what do you think?

good to see you too, ann marie! how are the boys? i can’t believe how old everyones’ kids seem to me! time marches on but i guess i still think these kids should be babies, lol!

[Anonymous]

I have lots to say & info on enzymes…

My ds Evan is 9 mths old as well & seems very similar to your dd (I was on a customized TED very strict until a few weeks ago- still on restricted diet but much better) . He was always ok on the %iles until his 9 month appt & now he’s 9th %ile BUT my ped (who, btw is VERY conservative & would act accordingly if he thought it wasn’t ok) says it’s fine for now – he’s probably just ‘finding’ his growth curve to stick to…hope that makes sense. Sidenote: my toddler (who had no reflux or intolerance issues) went from 30th down to 11th %ile @ his 9mth appt too… now he’s just a 10-15 %ile kiddo & again, ped says that’s fine since dh & I are both thin (ped’s words not mine-lol) & were skinny kids.

Bottom line: it does NOT sound like your dd is FTT. Drs. have to look @ %iles dropping OVER TIME – not from one appt to the next – kwim? I would get another opinion or wait it out.

Okay, on to solids. We started Evan on some solids (w/o enzymes) around 7 mths old & it was a disaster. It still isn’t great (he’s intolerant/allergic to pears, prunes & oatmeal so far- all very mild foods) but he’s doing better. He can do squash, carrots, apples & most recently CHICKEN (this was huge!).

Here’s the enzymes we use – they are free of everything (b/c again, my ds is super sensitive like your dd)… I give them to him directly & I also take them.

http://wholesalesupplementstore.com/complete-gest.html

Let me know if I can help any more!

[Anonymous]

Hi Gina,

I won’t hyjack with the update (I am due to write a very long post!) but it has been quite a bit stressful here……. UGh… I still think of them as babies, too, but Dylan just had his 6TH birthday and Carter’s 3RD is next week! Unbelieveable!!!!!!!

Riley is going to be 5 this week! I am amazed too!

[hellbennt]

hihi gina!!!!

just wanted to chime in w/ the HELLO and also:

Ari, non-refluxer, fell off the charts at 9 months…I was VERY worried and vented here…but he’s FINE now…like previous posters, he fell off the chart but remained on his own curve…he’s long and lean now- still a peanut/light when I pick him up, as compared to others his age in his little pre-school class who feel more ‘solid…’

HTH

[Anonymous]

Hi Gina,

First off, wow and hats off to you for continuing to breastfeed on the diet you are on. I did a very restricted diet and it is so difficult! I haven’t dealt with the lower end of the growth chart like you describe, but my first thought is that someone has to be small, there is a spectrum for a reason, and that’s because some people are big, medium and small. If she seems to be otherwise thriving, then it doesn’t seem to be such a worry?– especially if you and your family are shorter than some? Also, I just want to mention this, it’s been on my mind because we are dealing with a yeast/thrush infection but I have a friend whose daughter was on prevacid, VERY restricted diet and they still couldn’t figure out what was going on and she wasn’t sleeping, etc. The mother did her own research and basically decided maybe the baby had a yeast overgrowth in her gi tract. She began giving her Florastor– a probiotic that does have some lactace in it (I’m not sure if that means traces of dairy or what, but I have some and it’s on teh ingrediant list) anyways, giving that for the long term did the trick for her daughter. It turns out she was reacting to foods that the yeast would feed on, dairy, fruits high in sugar, breads, etc. Not to throw something completely out there at you, but it’s just something to htink about. The daughter is MSPI but reacted to so many other foods that they had her on gluten/dairy/soy free diets, etc. and once the yeast problem was in balance she was able to give her bread although she still doesn’t get dairy and is two and half years old. Just to clarify this all began when she was an infant and now she’s 2.5 years old. My friend says she sleeps like a dream when she gets her prevacid, her probiotic and the diet is correct. It was only when she felt good enough to sleep that she showed signs of being a “good sleeper.”

In my own situation, my ds couldn’t have dairy, soy or gluten or beef– has terrible reflux nad didn’t sleep for more than two hours at a stretch until around 18 months old. Sleep was our biggest challenge and nothing seemed to work until we got all the cogs in the wheel, our last piece of the puzzle was removing gluten from our diets (when he was 17 months old), along with doing reflux meds (high healthy doses too) and probiotics. This past fall we were able to give him beef (at age four) and we are doing wheat now, beginning about six weeks ago. He’s okay, although I think his reflux has increased a bit, but he is sleeping through the night and seems generally normal. And he LOVES bread. haha. We’re still dairy free and oh, he’s been having soy since about age 2.5 or 3. I nursed him until age two. When he began solids he was still in your situation– we didn’t have everything figured out with food, meds, reflux and i took him off solids in order to keep things simpler as I tried to figure out what was causing problems. He began solids for real about age 10 or 11 months and even though for living here that’s very late, he was fine with it. That way i could strictly control my diet and his wasn’t a factor. He was in the 50% for growth, though, so I know that’s a different ball game. Another thought I have for you is are you trying any sort of probiotics with her? Are enzymes the same as probiotics? Maybe I don’t have the terminology right, but we used probiotics and that seemed to help general gi discomfort. I used Nature’s Way primadophilus for children, it’s a powder, you can mix it with water, breastmilk or just probably let them suck it off your finger (wet your finger first)– but that was a help to us as well. I believe it’s dairy and soy free, it needs to be refrigerated, I buy it at Whole Foods. I just bought it again to use with my infant daughter who’s got reflux, MSPI and gi issues. I hope things improve and I hope you begin to have luck with more foods and more sleep!

[Anonymous]

gina, i’m 5′ 5 1/2″ and kevin is 5’8″—so we are not particularly big people—-and this was pointed out quite a bit over the years when i mentioned that my children are small. sylvia stayed around the 3rd % (i think) during the first 2 years of her life. i have no idea what % she is now or even what she weighs. i haven’t noticed how she looks, size-wise, compared to the other kids in her preschool class—and i play the piano for them every tuesday—i’ll have to make a point to look.

i think i’d watch her weight for awhile before worrying too much—-i’ll bet she has just found her own curve—especially since the women in your family are small.

[hellbennt]

OT: christine: you play the piano, too??!!! you never cease to amaze me!

gluten free baking, home-steading stuff- sewing….my oh my!

back to Gina!

hellbennt2009-03-13 07:55:19

[Anonymous]

thank you everyone for your replies! i this place!

erin–thank you for info on the enzymes! i will have to check them out. my concerns are many, i’ll start with the amts. how much do you give to evan and how? how much do you take? i ask, b/c when i was taking the other enzymes, both mads and me had rumbly upset tummies if i took them according to directions (one with each meal, i believe) and i finally found a good titration for her (i wasn’t concerned about my rumbly tummy, lol). i had to sprinkle a bit of a capsule in water and drink it with each meal. by the end of the day, i had about a half of a capsule. also, we are mtg with a hematologist b/c madelyn has been developing petechiae. with blood cancers in our family, i was terrified we were looking at leukemia. her first round of basic blood tests came back fine, praise God. however, i noticed that when i started the enzymes (with the papaya leaves) was when i first noticed the petechiae in earnest. on the off chance the enzymes were causing this (that was the only diet change), i stopped them and within a week the petechiae went away. they’ve never really gone away completely and they appear to me, anyway, to ebb and flow depending on diet infractions. when i mentioned the possible link b/t the petechiae and diet infractions, the doc was puzzled. she said she had heard, of course, of herbs having the capability of causing bleeding issues (prolonged bleeding times, aka blood not clotting as quickly as it should) but not food. i still believe there is some correlation b/t the two, but when she mentioned the herbs and asked if i was taking any, i realized that about twice a week i was allowing myself some fennel tea. she looked up fennel and sure enough, it can prolong bleeding time, etc! i’ve stopped the tea, but i still can’t shake the food connection in my mind, either. on one hand, i REALLY want to start the enzymes, but am so scared they will also be the culprit in her blood issues, not just the fillers being the problem. kwim? sorry if this is so long! i will have to catalog those in my notes and when her petechiae go away (hopefully) again, i can start afresh.

oh shoot, speak of the babe…she just woke up! i will reply more later

[Anonymous]

I have a great expirience with enzymes, however everyone is different and you might to try them out and see if they will help or not.

this link is very informative: http://www.enzymestuff.com/

I use Houston and Enzymedica brand.

good luck!

kendramom2009-03-13 17:48:51

[Anonymous]

hi guys–i’m back. i really appreciate the replies.

erin–how often do you feed evan solids? i have been introducing foods slowly to madelyn (one tsp of a food, then wait a week to intro another) and so far, she does okay with sweet potatoes, squash (questionable), rice cereal (surprised me!), and pears. however, with the intro of these foods, as i expected, her sleep has somewhat deteriorated. she wakes up more at night, which i knew would happen and i’m not really worried. she doesn’t scream out in pain like she used to when i would slip up in my diet when she was littler. also, i have been eating some things that are out of my usual diet, just in small quantities about once or twice a week to start introducing them gently to her system. this may be also contributing to her nightwaking, but again, it’s not TOO bad. i do wonder if i’ll ever get a full night’s sleep again, though

anne–i had to chuckle when i read your reply, and how you congratulated me on nursing for so long on such a restricted diet. i remember reading your posts in the past and thinking the same thing about you, how i could never do that, etc. haha!! how these little beauties change our ideas of ‘sacrifice’. i just started giving madelyn probiotics again yesterday. i had a brand that had rice in it and it started to bother her after about a week. this brand does not have any fillers so prayerfully they will not bother her and only do her good. i know personally that probiotics have helped me with digestion issues, and if she follows in my footsteps, this will do wonders. i am looking into the digestive enzymes but am wary of doing so many things at once. on the other hand, i remember how much of a difference enzymes made when i first started using them…it was like magic!! what do you guys think? probiotics, or enzymes? i’ve been on both, and with the enzymes saw a different child completely for a week (in a good way) until the fillers got to her. i’ve also been on probiotics and didn’t see such a dramatic difference in her. perhaps i should just stick with probiotics for awhile, give it a really good chance and see what happens before switching…what do you think?

i think she’s just going to be like you mentioned ari is, laura, and be more of a peanut. riley is so solid and heavy, she’s just light as air. she has, however, gained almost a pound, in two weeks. her ped would be happy. i think seeing FTT on her chart was shocking and scared me quite a bit. now that i’ve had a chance to really calm down and talk about it with dh (he’s such a comfort), i can look at her and see nothing but a healthy baby.

thank you all for the links about enzymes. it is so good to come to a place like this, where so many caring parents share really valuable info. you’re the best!

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