Mucous and runny poos - any ideas what I could be missing?

[~Jen~]

DD2's EBF and has mucous stools and reflux.  Her nappies are getting worse.  More mucous and really liquidy.  Paed recommended cutting major allergens from early on as DD1 went through the same thing.  I've been dairy/soy/egg/gluten/nut free for the past 2 months.  Despite all this, it is getting worse.  More mucous and runny.  She had a Calprotectin test done (was told this tests gut inflammation) and it has doubled in two weeks.  She hasn't been putting on much weight which is why paed most concerned.  We had a visit today thankfully she jumped up in weight a bit so he has delayed a Neocate trial to see how she does EBF for another week. 

My diet mainly consists of fruits and veg, meat (mainly chicken, beef and lamb) and fish, potatoes, rice and oats.  I take a few vitamins and supplements .  I know there really is no way to know for sure without doing a challenge but in the interest of time is there anything you think I could be missing or that stands out as potential trouble food?

[~Jen~]

Sorry... just realised I probably should have posted this in the Food Allergies board please move as needed!

[deb]

This might also be a sign of a gut flora imbalance. Has she ever had antibiotics? Did you have them during delivery? If she has a lot of yeast in her system, anything starchy would feed the yeast in her gut and they'd multiply.

It might be worth looking to see if you can find dairy-free probiotics and give them a try.

[~Jen~]

Interesting!  Yes, I was given antibiotics during delivery.  I will start a probiotic tomorrow - thanks so much for the idea!  Do you think I should cut back on the starchy foods as well?

[Buntybear]

I am wondering about the food chemicals - Salicylates, Amines and Glutamate.... I don't know much about them I am afraid but here is a thread we had a while ago that might help?

Diary of putting my family on the RAPH diet

[deb]

Ooh, hadn't thought about sals etc; Buntybear raises another possibility.

I'd probably start with the probiotics and see if they make a difference; if so, I'd go ahead and cut back some on the starches and see if it changes anything.

And definitely check out the other thread; there is so much that can mess with the body!

[~Jen~]

You know we suspected food chemicals with DD1 and I followed the RAPH loosely with the help of Eloise years ago.  I never saw a clear improvement for DD1 but it was hard to know for sure.  I just pulled out my old book and noticed that many of the foods I am left eating with DD2 are very high in Sals and Amines... hmmm.  This could be the missing piece.  I will swap some things around tomorrow and see if we see a change.  Thanks for reminding me about this! 

[Buntybear]

I hesitated to post it as it makes life even more complicated but if you have cut so much out already and there is still so much mucous then I thought I might as well through it in the mix . It could just be cutting out some of the fruit and veg may help.

Olly reacted very badly to fructose when he was weaned. I don't actually know if that can go through breast milk though 

[~Jen~]

And I hesitated to pull out the book dreading having to cut more foods but I think I can just swap some things around to cut out the very high sals fruits/veg and eat things that are more moderate. I think it is a good start for now and not too hard. 

[Buntybear]

Good luck, really hope this is the key!

[ZacsMumme]

Glad you have had such great advice so far Jen. Im going to move this over to the FA board for now x

[Katebydesign]

Take a look into FPIES and see if this sounds like something your child might have.  My daughter was just diagnosed and has frequent mucous and runny poos.

[~Jen~]

Well there has definitely been an improvement in her poos! 
Still some mucous but much less and not so runny anymore.  I know these things take time but I think we are heading in the right direction. Fingers crossed. I wanted to try focusing on one change at a time so first I've focused on the probiotics and cutting back on starchy foods.   

Deb, anything else you can recommend I do to continue to rebalance gut flora? Probiotics 2x a day, diet mainly meat/fish,non starchy fruit and veg.

[deb]

Oh yay! I'd stick with what you're doing for right now, especially as she's still so young. Some people like grapefruit seed extract to help kill yeast, but as she's so young you'd be the one adding it to your own drinks so she'd be getting that thru the milk, but there are different schools of thought on that stuff. If there's already improvement, I"d stay that course and see how it progresses.

[~Jen~]

Thanks! Will keep doing what we are doing! I will be sooo happy if we figured it out and I can keep BFing her.