Possible Gluten intolerance?

amwallace

My DH has gluten intolerance. We don't know if he is Celiac's... we still need to do testing. We have slowly been introducing gluten-free foods to DD, and she has been doing okay with rice, sweet potatoes, etc. I decided to try some gluten, so I found a wheat cereal - just wheat flakes, and added a bit to her foods yesterday and today. Yesterday she seemed normal. Tonight she has been very fussy, crying, not wanting to sleep. This is totally not her personality - she's usually pretty easy going, hardly every cries. She almost seems to be in pain.

So, question for those of you with kids that are gluten intolerant - what are their symptoms? Should I have testing done with her, or should we just do some more informal tests at home? I'm planning on taking her off gluten for a couple of days and maybe introducing it once more to just see if these symptoms are gluten and not something else like teething. Any ideas?

DandelionMom

Between my two celiac kids, I think we've seen every symptom there is.  Here's a good list https://www.csaceliacs.org/celiac_symptoms.php 

I hope this isn't too discouraging but it isn't very easy to get a good diagnosis for little kids.  The testing that is considered "gold standard" is based on damage that is done by consuming years' worth of gluten.  You can try the genetic testing but I was told it is pricey and isn't considered conclusive. 

Talk to your doctor.  Mine was comfortable diagnosing dd based on reactions because her older sister and I both have celiac disease. 

You don't have to have an official diagnosis but it makes school a lot easier. 

westcoaststyle

DS has Celiac Disease and so we started DD on gluten at about 5 months based on our pedi GI doc's recommendation. The current theory is that introducing gluten earlier might help the body know how to treat it later in life and maybe prevent Celiac Disease from being triggered. In any case, we gave DD a wheat based cereal and I HATED doing it. I took her off of it about a month later when I felt like her sleep patterns were all messed up. She went from waking up 1-2 times a night to 3 or 4 times a night. Maybe she was teething or it was something else, but her sleep got better when she was off the cereal. I don't know. I might have just been looking for an excuse to get the gluten cereal out of my kitchen. We're looking into doing genetic testing now. I just hate the thought of unknowingly "poisoning" my kid.