Suspect food intolerance - what is causing it?

[Kaitlynsmum]

DD is nearly two and has always had diarrhoea - not severe, not watery, but liquid stools. She shows no signs of dehydration so I've not really worried about it. However DS (nine months) has solid stools and in comparing the two I think DD may have a food intolerance. Is there any published material on how to diagnose what is the cause? I have heard about things like keeping a diary and eliminating groups of foods, but if there is a better way to go about this it would be useful to know - like which group of foods to eliminate first, how long should a food be eliminated before it can be excluded as the problem? Has anyone done this themselves and been successful? Is it absolutely essential to seek medical advice?

Any advice greatly appreciated!

[Scubagirl]

You said your daughter has always had runny stoolls, this could be normal for her if she has no other symptoms like rashes, poor weight gain, sleep disturbances frequent gas. A big clue is the appearance of the stool (gross I know) is there stringy mucous in it or dark specks or obvious blood? The very smelly thing might be an indication. Unfortunately if you suspect a food allergy the only way to do it yourself is eliminate foodsone by one. It can take up to two weeks to clear their system, if it  is a long term allergy exposure (something they eat every day it could take as long as a month or more to see better stools (usually though you see it is getting some improvement before then) The big things to start with are what they call the top eight like milk, soy, eggs, fish, wheat citrus, corn, tree nuts/nuts. Remember if you go this route, you have to read labels especially with milk and soy and corn as these are ingredients in many things and go by many names, milk can be whey,casein etc.. and soy is hydrolized veggie protein, natural flavours etc... all these things would have to elimenated to do a proper trial.Since your daughter is two, I believe they can do allergy tests so I advise seeing a doctor if you are really convinced. Stick to your guns if you think it is an allergy, because if she appears otherwise heathly it is my experience doctors take a stand back approach. I will state this could be normal for her thoughtwice a day is not bad and can be normal. I'm not a doctor but hope this was helpful. I know there ae lots of links out there for allergies, even in this forum.

[tinytatsmom]

Hi,
Just a thought, here in Canada I have gone to the Natropathic doctor and they do something called biofeed back.  They put bands around your ankles, wrists, and head.  They can tell all sorts of things.  At first I thought it was a bit of a joke but he started to come up with things he couldn't of possibly guessed.  It is possible to have a sensitivity to a food without having a true allergy.  When the body is under more stress the sensivity gets worse.  Might be something to look for, as it would save the elimination diet.  No clue whether you have N.D in Australia all though I imagine you do.  I believe here they study for 7 or 8 years just like a regular doc.
For example when I went they told me I was sensitive to wheat, sugar, red meat, gluten and milk.  Went again a couple of years later  and the gluten and meat were no longer a problem.  Hope that helps.  Something that your M.D could also do is run stool samples just to make sure there is no virus lurking.
tinytatsmom