GERD/allergies & SCD?

[Guest guest]

I have not posted in some time due to my daughter's ill health. I am on the

fence about what to do with her/what to feed her & would like some input. Here

is the situation...

I started my son on SCD first and my youngest daughter shortly after. This

was at the beginning of this year. My son has autism/chronic diarrhea & my

younger daughter has loose stools and has previously undergone multiple

abdominal surgeries/procedures. They are still on SCD.

My oldest daughter had no symptoms of anything wrong with her GI system. She

always has 1-2 normal BMs/per day. I didn't really want her to do SCD, but it

was getting difficult having both illegal and legal food in the house. At first

I let her eat her own snacks, but her meals were SCD. Then she started eating

100% SCD at home, but was free to eat a non-SCD at a friend's house/restaurant.

During this time, she developed some strange symptoms that I " mis-diagnosed " as

low blood sugar (no I am not a doctor!). Then at the end of July, my husband

decided we might as well all do SCD 100% of the time to see what it could do.

Within a week, she developed stomach pain and nausea. A few days later she

developed hives from head to toe. The pain and hives were so bad, she was

hospitalized for a week. They ruled out anything life-threatening and released

her not knowing what was wrong (with the idea of out-patient follow-up).

Elevated eosinophils was the only thing

significant they found. For the entire months of August & September, she

stayed in bed most of the day crying because of her stomach pain. She was

prescribed prevacid for possible GERD. It did not help. She needed/still needs

to take H2-blockers to control the hives. We don't generally take

pharmaceuticals, but nothing natural helped her. She had an endoscopy this

month and was diagnosed with chronic gastritis, GERD and borderline eosinophilic

esophagitis. They are now doing allergy tests on her to find out what is

causing her condition. The first appointment was strictly the scratch testing

(all normal). They prescribed her various breathing treatments (apparently she

was not breathing 100% normal capacity -- a complete shock to us). Next they

will do the patch testing where they place actual pieces of food from her diet

under tape on her back and check them after 72 hours to look for a reaction. I

will not change anything with her diet until I have all the

results in as I have no idea what to change at this point.

To make matters worse, my youngest has been getting more and more hoarse, and

both she and brother have developed ezcema around their mouths. She is needing

to be scoped by the ENT doctor first to view her vocal chords and then she is

having an endoscopy and a ph-probe. GERD is also suspected. Does anyone have

any theories? We don't do nuts BTW, so this is not a nut allergy. I have never

heard GERD discussed in the context of SCD -- does anyone here have it? Has

anyone developed GERD because of the diet?

another question... If you take all of the above out of the picture, my

youngest two have both seen improved BMs on the diet, but their progress

definately plateaued some time ago. Before I consider redoing the intro (we

don't eat past stage 1-2 so the intro is not that far of a stretch), I have a

question about the foods of SCD. A food allergy book that a very experienced

member of this group sent me lists a disacharride-free diet. According to her

book, many of the SCD foods I thought were mono-sacharrides, are actually

disacharrides and should be avoided if you cannot break down a disacharride.

Some of the ones she recommends initially avoiding are stage 1 foods according

to SCD. I can't find an on-line resource that breaks down foods into their carb

structure, so I don't know what to believe! The allergy book is written by a

woman who is a PhD & registered dietician. I need to try something new with my

younger 2, as neither has truly normal BMs. My son is

still a carb-o-holic. He seems to get his fix from eating pounds and

pounds/per day of well cooked vegetables. He is completely insatiable! He

still tests positive for small bowel bacterial overgrowth, which I know is why

he is craving the legal carbs. Can someone explain which of the legal carbs are

actually monosacharrides? I would like to see if a strict monosacharride diet

gets the younger 2 off of the plateau.

Thanks if you made it this far!

-

---------------------------------

Building a website is a piece of cake.

Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to get online.

[Guest guest]

Hi, ,

I am so sorry to hear about the puzzling situation with your oldest

daughter. I have not heard of GERD getting worse on SCD, just

better. I hope the doctors will be able to get her back on track.

I just wanted to give a quick reply right now about the

monosaccharide vs. polysaccharide issue. All plants contain

cellulose which is a polysaccharide. You cannot have a healthy diet

of just monosaccharides.

If your son is avoiding meat, then he would have to eat huge amounts

of the carbs to get enough calories. Sneaky ways of getting protein

in are often discussed here. So I imagine you have been sneaking

some in. Can you try to sneak in more?

I cannot remember what all your children are taking but are they

taking digestive enzymes? In my case, 's BMs improved when I

started being more precise with the timing of the enzymes. (His

stools were irregular in consistency at that time.) I would give

them " 30 minutes " before a meal and then get busy and not have the

meal ready in 30 minutes. So, not being able to change myself, I

started opening the capsules and giving the enzymes in mashed banana

or avocado or applesauce right at the beginning of the meal. This

really helped.

Your situation seems very complex, so you may want to work with an

SCD counselor. Look for SCD Solutions in the files.

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/pecanbread/files/

mom to -12

SCD 4/23/04

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

So sorry to hear of your troubles. I have 2 children scd for a bit

more than a year now. Allergic/eczema/acid reflux kiddos.

My son is doing fairly well now..he couldn't even eat eggs or scd

yogurt for a while into scd...nuts, tomatoes, oranges, and some more

of the advanced fruits/veggies still give him ezcema around the

mouth/and or sore mouth.He tests allergic to only peanuts(skin tests).

My daughter is very food challenged, she only tests allergic to

dairy, eggs(skin tests)...she gets eczema around mouth/hoarse and

acid reflex from a ton of founds. She can have no nuts, no eggs, no

yogurt, and the only supplement she can take is the kirkmans

probiotic. She reactes to so many fruit/veggies...pineapple,peaches

(bad mouth, acid reflex recently),avocado, onions garlic,..and

more...she gets a sick tummy and sore mouth to lots of things still

(her reactions to some foods are lessoning, but she can't eat raw

stuff as it gives her bad acid reflex...she seemed to tolerate raw

food much bettter before scd?)....She did have a set back in June

where she was reacting to almost everything she was putting in her

mouth ie.cooked pears, bananas, chicken , beef etc. ...I'm not sure

what was going on...maybe one of those set backs for no reason that

they speak about in the healing journey...I'm not sure.

I don't know much about the patch test, but i do know that the

scratch testing showed little for my kids.

In my experience...with my kids...almost any food or supplement can

give them acid reflex or eczema around their mouths. My daughter has

a problem with the filler(cellulose) in the gi prhealth acidophilus...

but is fine with kirkmans...

My daughter is still reactive to some stage 1,2 foods...but is

tolerating some stage 3 things...everything cooked still...after 1

year scd.

I hope you can figure things out soon....i hope things get better soon

kind regards,

Cathy

celiacs kiddos 7,10 scd aug 2006

>

> I have not posted in some time due to my daughter's ill health. I

am on the fence about what to do with her/what to feed her & would

like some input. Here is the situation...

>

> I started my son on SCD first and my youngest daughter shortly

after. This was at the beginning of this year. My son has

autism/chronic diarrhea & my younger daughter has loose stools and

has previously undergone multiple abdominal surgeries/procedures.

They are still on SCD.

>

> My oldest daughter had no symptoms of anything wrong with her GI

system. She always has 1-2 normal BMs/per day. I didn't really want

her to do SCD, but it was getting difficult having both illegal and

legal food in the house. At first I let her eat her own snacks, but

her meals were SCD. Then she started eating 100% SCD at home, but

was free to eat a non-SCD at a friend's house/restaurant. During

this time, she developed some strange symptoms that I " mis-diagnosed "

as low blood sugar (no I am not a doctor!). Then at the end of July,

my husband decided we might as well all do SCD 100% of the time to

see what it could do. Within a week, she developed stomach pain and

nausea. A few days later she developed hives from head to toe. The

pain and hives were so bad, she was hospitalized for a week. They

ruled out anything life-threatening and released her not knowing what

was wrong (with the idea of out-patient follow-up). Elevated

eosinophils was the only thing

> significant they found. For the entire months of August &

September, she stayed in bed most of the day crying because of her

stomach pain. She was prescribed prevacid for possible GERD. It did

not help. She needed/still needs to take H2-blockers to control the

hives. We don't generally take pharmaceuticals, but nothing natural

helped her. She had an endoscopy this month and was diagnosed with

chronic gastritis, GERD and borderline eosinophilic esophagitis.

They are now doing allergy tests on her to find out what is causing

her condition. The first appointment was strictly the scratch

testing (all normal). They prescribed her various breathing

treatments (apparently she was not breathing 100% normal capacity --

a complete shock to us). Next they will do the patch testing where

they place actual pieces of food from her diet under tape on her back

and check them after 72 hours to look for a reaction. I will not

change anything with her diet until I have all the

> results in as I have no idea what to change at this point.

>

> To make matters worse, my youngest has been getting more and more

hoarse, and both she and brother have developed ezcema around their

mouths. She is needing to be scoped by the ENT doctor first to view

her vocal chords and then she is having an endoscopy and a ph-probe.

GERD is also suspected. Does anyone have any theories? We don't do

nuts BTW, so this is not a nut allergy. I have never heard GERD

discussed in the context of SCD -- does anyone here have it? Has

anyone developed GERD because of the diet?

>

> another question... If you take all of the above out of the

picture, my youngest two have both seen improved BMs on the diet, but

their progress definately plateaued some time ago. Before I consider

redoing the intro (we don't eat past stage 1-2 so the intro is not

that far of a stretch), I have a question about the foods of SCD. A

food allergy book that a very experienced member of this group sent

me lists a disacharride-free diet. According to her book, many of

the SCD foods I thought were mono-sacharrides, are actually

disacharrides and should be avoided if you cannot break down a

disacharride. Some of the ones she recommends initially avoiding are

stage 1 foods according to SCD. I can't find an on-line resource

that breaks down foods into their carb structure, so I don't know

what to believe! The allergy book is written by a woman who is a PhD

& registered dietician. I need to try something new with my younger

2, as neither has truly normal BMs. My son is

> still a carb-o-holic. He seems to get his fix from eating pounds

and pounds/per day of well cooked vegetables. He is completely

insatiable! He still tests positive for small bowel bacterial

overgrowth, which I know is why he is craving the legal carbs. Can

someone explain which of the legal carbs are actually

monosacharrides? I would like to see if a strict monosacharride diet

gets the younger 2 off of the plateau.

>

> Thanks if you made it this far!

>

> -

>

>

> ---------------------------------

> Building a website is a piece of cake.

> Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to get online.

>

>

[Guest guest]

Hi and Cathy,

My first time posting here, generally on most boards I am in learning mode,

usually don't have much to contribute.

I started scd for my daughter about a year ago and found that her

sensitivities to various foods and supplements continued to the extent that

four to five months after we were still at a very small choice of foods and

just a couple of supplements. Her foods at that time were all pastured

meats of the highest quality and biodynamically grown beyond organic

vegetables and fruits. We were not doing nuts and did have the yoghurt in.

She would also veer towards constipation though most days she would have at

least one bm but would miss a day every now and then and a couple of times

there were three days consecutively that she did not.

It was clear that her gut was still very leaky hence the continued

sensitivites and from various sources I gathered that the reason for this

was likely the massive yeast and biofilm overgrowth. In February, after

another bout of constipation, I did an yeast flush which was basically an

herbal flushing combination (it had senna which is scd illegal and am not

sure that it would be necessary anyway) similar to oxypowder, and at the

same time put her on a diet which was basically plenty of collagen broth

through the day, avocadoes, bananas, steamed vegetables but no solid meats.

Gave her as much as she wanted of all the above mentioned foods but just

avoided harder to digest solids such as meat and fibrous veggies. The foods

were from within the group that she could handle as of then. I also removed

all supplements including enzymes and fish oil. This was for a period of

nearly a week though the flushing powder I used for just a couple of days.

I want to reiterate that the powder may not be necessary except for severe

impaction which is what my daughter was getting to at that point.

She came out free of most sensitivities. Since then we have been able to

add foods and supplements consistently. Even sulphuric foods such as garlic

which had been a problem for her for long went away. The improvements and

progress have also been consistent especially with her apraxia.

I think the crucial element is the broth which heals the stomach lining

(collagen) as well as providing nutrition in a form that is easily absorbed

sparing a lot of digestive work. I also believe that the flush worked

because it did, as the name implies, flush away a lot of biofilm without

actually killing the organism, kind of uprooted it. It is the killing that

causes a lot of the die off reactions and when the biofilm is as rampant as

it is in most of our children, even a small amount is hard to handle.

It is not that she is free of the yeast/biofilm, they still rear their heads

now and then, but at least now they are cleary identifiable and we can deal

with them appropriately.

Hope this is useful.

Radhe

[Guest guest]

thanks Radhe

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

<<I have not posted in some time due to my daughter's ill health. I

am on the fence about what to do with her/what to feed her & would

like some input. Here is the situation...

>

> I started my son on SCD first and my youngest daughter shortly

after. This was at the beginning of this year. My son has

autism/chronic diarrhea & my younger daughter has loose stools and

has previously undergone multiple abdominal surgeries/procedures.

They are still on SCD.

>

> My oldest daughter had no symptoms of anything wrong with her GI

system. She always has 1-2 normal BMs/per day. I didn't really want

her to do SCD, but it was getting difficult having both illegal and

legal food in the house. At first I let her eat her own snacks, but

her meals were SCD. Then she started eating 100% SCD at home, but

was free to eat a non-SCD at a friend's house/restaurant. During

this time, she developed some strange symptoms that I " mis-diagnosed "

as low blood sugar (no I am not a doctor!). Then at the end of July,

my husband decided we might as well all do SCD 100% of the time to

see what it could do. Within a week, she developed stomach pain and

nausea. A few days later she developed hives from head to toe. The

pain and hives were so bad, she was hospitalized for a week. They

ruled out anything life-threatening and released her not knowing what

was wrong (with the idea of out-patient follow-up). Elevated

eosinophils was the only thing

> significant they found. For the entire months of August &

September, she stayed in bed most of the day crying because of her

stomach pain. She was prescribed prevacid for possible GERD. It did

not help. She needed/still needs to take H2-blockers to control the

hives. We don't generally take pharmaceuticals, but nothing natural

helped her. She had an endoscopy this month and was diagnosed with

chronic gastritis, GERD and borderline eosinophilic esophagitis.

They are now doing allergy tests on her to find out what is causing

her condition. The first appointment was strictly the scratch

testing (all normal). They prescribed her various breathing

treatments (apparently she was not breathing 100% normal capacity --

a complete shock to us). Next they will do the patch testing where

they place actual pieces of food from her diet under tape on her back

and check them after 72 hours to look for a reaction. I will not

change anything with her diet until I have all the

> results in as I have no idea what to change at this point. >>

Wow, I am really sorry to hear that your daughter has been through so

much.

Has she been tested for H. pylori? Other pathogenic bacteria or

parasites?

Was she eating yogurt and/or probiotics?

Is there a family history of low stomach acid?

What foods is she eating?

<< To make matters worse, my youngest has been getting more and more

hoarse, and both she and brother have developed ezcema around their

mouths. She is needing to be scoped by the ENT doctor first to view

her vocal chords and then she is having an endoscopy and a ph-probe.

GERD is also suspected. Does anyone have any theories? We don't do

nuts BTW, so this is not a nut allergy. I have never heard GERD

discussed in the context of SCD -- does anyone here have it? Has

anyone developed GERD because of the diet?>>

I haven't heard of any developing GERD on the diet, but a few with

GERD have found that the diet helped.

<< another question... If you take all of the above out of the

picture, my youngest two have both seen improved BMs on the diet, but

their progress definately plateaued some time ago. Before I consider

redoing the intro (we don't eat past stage 1-2 so the intro is not

that far of a stretch), I have a question about the foods of SCD.>>

Have you considered trying the yogurt or other fermented food to get

a variety of good bacteria? What about the S. boulardii?

<<A food allergy book that a very experienced member of this group

sent me lists a disacharride-free diet. According to her book, many

of the SCD foods I thought were mono-sacharrides, are actually

disacharrides and should be avoided if you cannot break down a

disacharride. Some of the ones she recommends initially avoiding are

stage 1 foods according to SCD. I can't find an on-line resource

that breaks down foods into their carb structure, so I don't know

what to believe! The allergy book is written by a woman who is a PhD

& registered dietician. I need to try something new with my younger

2, as neither has truly normal BMs. My son is

> still a carb-o-holic. He seems to get his fix from eating pounds

and pounds/per day of well cooked vegetables. He is completely

insatiable! He still tests positive for small bowel bacterial

overgrowth, which I know is why he is craving the legal carbs. Can

someone explain which of the legal carbs are actually

monosacharrides? I would like to see if a strict monosacharride diet

gets the younger 2 off of the plateau.>>

Is there any indication that yeast may also be a problem?

Sheila, SCD Feb. 2001, UC 23yrs, PCOD 22yrs

mom of and

[Guest guest]

Thanks to all the replies. I haven't had any time to individually reply, but I

did read them all. We saw yet another doctor today and all agree it is an

extreme kind of a food allergy type of GERD and we need to remove the culprit

allergen from the diet or it will get much worse. I think the reason SCD has

triggered it is that a few foods were introduced that she had never eaten before

on a regular basis (squash comes to mind & others too). So healthy or not, we

took out foods that were not allergens to her body and replaced them with ones

that were. After 10 months, it's hard to remember which foods were new as of

this year as I have gotten so used to this diet that I forget what we ate in

2006! We will complete all of the testing and hopefully be on our way to

recovery. See the article below...

-

Local Health

Food allergies among children new epidemic in state

BY JUANA M. GYEK, SUN STAFF WRITER

--See Image(s) Below--

Published on: October 1, 2006

Is your child vomiting, having chest pain or is unable to swallow food?

He or she may have acid reflux, or a more complicated condition in which food

allergies are causing swelling in the esophagus.

Food allergies in the gastrointestinal tract have become " a new epidemic in the

state " among children, said Dr. Fayez Ghishan, director of the University of

Arizona Steele Children’s Research Center.

Eosinophilic esophagitis (EE), swelling and inflammation in the esophagus caused

by a food allergy, and Eosinophilic gastroenteropathy, inflammation and swelling

of a larger area extending from the esophagus to the entire gastrointestinal

tract, are conditions that are becoming more common among youths, he said.

Allergens in the air mixing with food and causing allergic reactions can be a

contributing cause for the increase in EE, Ghishan said.

EE displays a delayed reaction at two to three weeks, unlike better-known food

allergies that cause more immediate reactions — like swelling of the tongue and

the throat, difficulty breathing and hives — soon after the food is eaten,

Ghishan said.

This is why parents and doctors may not immediately think this is an allergic

reaction but a different problem.

EE is sometimes confused with Gastroesophaheal reflux disease (GERD), a

condition in which acid and pepsin produced in the stomach come up the esophagus

and possibly causing inflammation and damage to the lining.

GERD and EE display similar symptoms, so if medication is given for GERD and the

condition does not improve, doctors and parents should consider EE as the

possible cause of the child’s inability to pass food, Ghishan said.

Ghishan said one theory holds that mothers can prevent food allergies in their

children by taking probiotics, a healthy bacteria, during pregnancy and while

breast feeding, which they should do until their child is a year old.

Starting next year, doctors will offer the patch test at the Steele Children’s

Research Center to help determine exactly what food allergy a patient has,

Ghishan said. This test is currently only available in two hospitals across the

country.

" I am delighted that all the patients from the Southwest (will not) have to

travel to Cincinnati or Philadelphia to get this test done, so we will be doing

it at the University of Arizona. That is a major advance for people not to

travel and spend all this money, " Ghishan said. " It’s going to be a major

advance in taking care of kids in the state of Arizona. "

a M. Gyek can be reached at jgyek (AT) yumasun (DOT) com or 539-6872.

TOP-7 ALLERGEN FOODS

Top 7 foods that can cause allergies in the esophagus or gastrointestinal tract

• Cow’s milk

• Soy

• Eggs

• Fish

• Wheat

• Tree nuts

• Peanuts

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

Symptoms of food allergies in the esophagus or gastrointestinal tract

IN BABIES:

• Vomiting.

• Refusal to eat.

• Irritability.

• Spitting up.

• Stretching motion to stretch out esophagus to let food pass.

OLDER CHILDREN:

• Chest pain.

• Inability to swallow food.

IN TEEN AND ADULTS:

• Chest pain.

• Difficulty in swallowing.

THE PATCH TEST:

• Foods are chosen based on the patient’s diet.

• Small amounts of pure food are placed in tiny cups.

• Cups are taped to the skin of the patient.

• The patches are removed after 48 hours.

• Doctor views any reactions at 72 hours.

---------------------------------

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