Conference moira::parenting

    My babysitters little boy (7) has been going through something 
    similar.  He has been having pains in his stomach and some days
    it's enough to make him throw up.  He also has had no problems
    at home and none at school....
    
    He had tests done yesterday and it turns out that the dr. said
    he has a nervous stomach...
    
    I'm not sure what the next steps are but I'll let ya know....
    
    Good luck!
    
    

    Has Kathleen been eating something new since all this started?
    Maybe she is allergic to something she's eating.
    
    I had a problem with my daughter Laura that turned out to be an allergy
    to cow's milk.
    
    - Cathy
    

Funny you should mention a nervous stomach.  When I read your note that's the
first thing I thought of.  I had the same problem growing up.  I was a little
hyper as a kid, and kept a lot of things inside me.  That's the way it came
out.  Didn't turn into anything serious, but did frighten everyone for a while.
They put me on a mild stomach coating, with a slight tranquilizer, seemed to
work.

Michael

Thanks for the quick replies!  

Please tell me more about nervous stomach!  Would it get in the way of
fun things, or only come up in stressful situations.  What do you know
about the medicine?  When did you outgrow this?

This kid expresses everything, it seems to me.  She is very very verbal,
very sensitive, and says what she thinks (again, my perception).
For example, when someone told her last week not to cry, she told me that
she thought that was rude and that "a person has a right to cry!".  She
is used to "using her words" in school and at home to work things out
and does it all the time.  Maybe there's something else bottled up 
inside?  I'm talking to someone at EAP about meeting with her, today.

We've had her off all milk products for 2 full weeks - no difference.

I would also like to hear about food allergies any of you know about that
cause stomach pain.

Thanks,
Jane

    I too had a nervous stomach as a child and frequently had stomach
    aches after lunch at school and after supper.  My sister swore the
    after-supper-bout was so I wouldn't have to help her with the dishes.  ;')
    
    My mother called the school about the lunch-time-bout and asked if they 
    could allow me a little longer to eat my lunch, which seemed to help 
    (although I remember feeling very conspicuous sitting there eating my 
    lunch alone while the "lunch ladies" tried to clean up).
    
    I eventually grew out of it.
    
    Is your child a worrier?  Maybe teaching her some relaxation techniques
    would help.  
    
    Good luck,
    Noranne
    

and I'm not a doctor, so keep that in mind.....For me it was not the things 
going on around me, but the things going on in my own head.  I had a very active
mind at an early age.  I analysed everything, had to have answers to every 
question, looked under every rock, read everything I could get my hands on....
guess my body couldn't handle the worlds problems at 6 years old.  I don't think
that it showed externally, at least not from my perspective.  It's funny, but
I don't even remember growing out of it....it never got in my way...never 
prevented me from doing anything....happened most frequently when nothing was
going on around me.  Maybe I just got involved with other things, and it keep
me from dwelling on it.  I started school, started playing baseball, and it
seemed to go away.  Maybe the activities started to occupy my mind, can't say.
Sure had my mom worried though!

Michael

    My son, 5, has also had stomache aches for the past 18 months.  We
    found that drinking more fluids helped also.  Not sure why -  it seemed
    to get worse in the summer so dehydration might have been a
    contributing factor. (My son will sweat out a gallon on a 80 degree
    day)!  We also determined that he has recently become allergic to
    pollens and molds which aggrevates the situation.
    
    Laura

    
    	I too was diagnosed at a very young age with a nervous stomach.  I
    know that I took medication, but it was so long ago I don't know what
    the medication was.  
    
    	The main treatment that worked the best however was strick diet
    control.  From the time I was 5-6 to the time I was about 10 or so I
    was on a VERY blan diet.  This was difficult in an Italian family,
    however, it worked.  This meant that when the family had pasta, mine
    was without sauce (too acidic), instead tossed with a little bit of
    margarine or butter.  Limit of fats, acidic food, fried foods and dairy
    products greatly reduced my stomach pains.  At first it can be hard for
    a child to get used to, however they begin to understand the cause and
    affect if they eat a food that then ends up causing a stomach ache.  I
    know that I quickly accepted the cause and affect for myself and did
    not push to eat foods that made my stomach ache.
    
    	You might want to reduce your son to a very blan diet, see how it
    works.  Then you can experiment with adding one thing at a time to see
    how it affects him.  Many times stomach problems are due to food
    alergies/reactions.  This is the best way to determine if food is
    helping to aggravate the situation and which foods are responsible.
    
    	The good news is that our bodies do change.  This is something that
    most kids seem to grow out of.  I know I did!
    
    M.E.

As a kid, I had problems with migraine headaches.  One of the first symptoms
was a very upset stomach.  Sometimes I would throw up and feel much better,
even tho I still had the headache.  I don't remember ever telling my parents
about the headaches, because I thought it was normal to feel bad sometimes.

My point is that perhaps the stomach ache is one part of a larger picture.
As a 5 year old, she may not be aware that headaches, etc, are also symptoms.

Pat

    Is she drinking a lot of juice?  My son really loves the Ocean
    Spray Refreshers juices, but he can't drink them first thing in the
    morning because, even though we dilute them with water, they're just
    too hard on his stomach.  
    
    Try a blander diet for your little one and see if that helps.  Did you
    check with the teachers at school to see if there's anything going on
    there?  Some kids are very sensitive to change, and even a seemingly
    minor one, like having a substitute teacher for a few days, can throw
    them off their stride.  Definitely talk to EAP about the little one,
    and also examine the home situation to see if there's anything YOU're
    upset about that your daughter could somehow be picking up on.  If
    she's as sensitive as you indicate, that's a very real possibility.
    
    

I've poured and poured over Kathleen's home and school life and it's
so stable and constant that it's boring!   I've been checking with 
others to see if I'm missing something, but can't find anything.

Her teachers have come to the conclusion that it is physical pain, based
on what she misses out on when she's hurting - I feel the same way.

My gut feeling at this point (no pun intended) is that it's related to
certain foods, but I don't know which ones.  I'll find out Friday if
the doctor is going to pursue this with us or call it "nervous stomach"
as in previous notes and call it a day. 

Food ideas?

Jane

    I was just wondering.  I remember reading a few replys back that you
    either slowed down her intake of milk products or stopped.  If you are
    still giving her milk products maybe you should stop for a while and
    see what happens.  She could have a lactose intolerance.  My son has
    this but it works differently.  If he drinks to much milk (which he
    loves) or eats alot of chocolate he gets diariah really bad for at
    least 2 days then he is fine.  Does she have problems with her bowel
    movements?  If so this could be causing the pain also.  There is a
    disorder that only occures in young children and very rarely in adults. 
    Where the bowel track gets blocked and the child has problems going to
    the bathroom.  This disorder occured in my mom and the doctor had to go
    in and surgecly remove the blockage and she was fine after that.  Maybe
    when you go back to the doctors, ask him to do an allergy test on
    foods, she could be allergic to yeast products (breads, rolls, etc.).
    
    Think about what she eats and try and figure out just when the pains
    come.
    
    Good luck.
    
    Liz

    Kathleen has been off all milk products for the last two weeks.  No
    improvement.
    
    She is very "regular" - no constipation, etc.
    
    The pains are not directly related to eating any particular food and
    come at different times of day.  Of course that doesn't rule out a food
    reaction that hurts the belly for days at a time, so tracking it by her
    intake is going to be tough!
    
    She does say that her tummy always hurts after lunch, but has also
    gotten up in the morning with her tummy hurting.  The next morning
    is often fine.
    
    Now I'm keeping her off citrus and acidic foods, but it will take a
    while to see if that helps.
    
    HELP!
    

    I have similar stomach pains after a bout with the flu (esp if vomiting
    is part of the symptoms).  They typically work themselves out after a
    couple of weeks, but it's pretty miserable for the duration.
    
    For me at least, it does seem to be related to food -- almost always
    occurs just after eating, but also occurs if my stomach gets too empty.
    And if I get too hungry and THEN eat, it's awful.
    
    The best things to eat at those times are plain breads and crackers,
    and just nibble.  Maybe Kathleen needs to eat more often than 3 times
    a day for a while?  Will the school support that as an experiment?
    
    Also, as a general rule, I have "nervous stomach" under stress -- and
    such stomach pains can induce stress!  Normally I can eat whatever
    I want, but when my system goes haywire,  I cut out the following
    things until it rights itself again:
        -  all milk products, especially cheeses and cream sauces and cream
    		soups
        -  oils -- fried foods, salad dressings, marinades, and fatty foods
    		such as hotdogs and bacon
        -  tomato sauces -- spaghetti, pizza, barbecue
        -  all foods cooked in any kind of sauce
        -  highly spiced foods
        -  sometimes I also have to eliminate red meat altogether
    
    Another thought -- your notes didn't say whether this occurs only on
    school days or also on weekends.  If it doesn't occur on weekends,
    there may be something subtle going on at school that she isn't
    connecting with the stomach aches.  For example, the rude comment
    about her crying -- was the crying because of the stomach ache or for
    some other reason, and has this (or something similar) happened before?
    
    Good luck to you both
    Beth

in any way...I drank, and drink milk with every meal, and don't have problems
with spices or anything (never had)...kind of a cast iron stomach....but the
pain still came.

Michael

Could it be gas?  My middle son was a *very* gassy baby, and became a gassy
toddler, too.  The cramps would be so bad they sometimes made him cry.
As he got older, I encouraged him to burp, figuring the more he burped, the
less gas would be trapped in his intestines.   Worked like a charm.  Now if I can 
only get him to burp *quietly*, I'd be all set.  :-) 

    My son, who is now almost 20 (years, not months), still has a nervous
    stomach.  It doesn't matter if it is out of happy excitement, or fear... 
    if it is the least bit of an excitable reason, he gets an upset stomach.  

    When he was 6 months old, he would get so bad that he would pass out
    from pain!  At about 3 the doctors decided he has Abdominal Epilepsy...
    and that he should out grow it.  AE is very hard to detect, and is not
    treatable... it's something you have to outgrow.  Brent stopped passing
    out at around age 6, but the stomach upsets/pains still effect him.  

    He has learned to live with it.... 

    M-L
    
    
    PS  to make matters worse, he is also allergic to almost ALL
    antibiotics, so he has stomach problems from that too!!!!

    Thanks for all your suggestions - I am able to use all or part of every one!
    
    Kathleen was seen by the doctor on Friday and he found nothing except
    for a noisy bowel.  Based on all the negative tests and his exams, he
    told us that she "isn't sick" and wrote it off as a "irritable bowel",
    which says to me her "tummy hurts".  He said she would probably outgrow
    it. 
    
    He did suggest avoiding acidic foods (I knew that, I have NOTES) and
    doing it like we did the milk, as a food challenge: none for 2 weeks,
    then load it up.  The milk came out nothing, but maybe the orange juice
    will be different.
    
    I've been paying more attention to when and where she complains, and I
    see a pattern of her milking the situation.  So now I'm playing it down
    with her and it seems to help. 
    
    So my new perception of the deal is this: Sometimes her stomach hurts,
    and when it does it is in the form of cramps that don't last long. 
    While we try to find the foods that make it worse, we're working with
    her to live with the discomfort and move past it, rather than turn a 2
    minute pain into a one-hour sympathy and attention party.
    
    Thanks for all your help!
    
    Jane

For my niece, the problem turned out to be an incorrect bite.  

Since the teeth she used to chew with did not meet correctly, she could
not properly chew her food.  The stomach had to work harder to digest the
partially chewed food, causing stomach pains.

BTW:  Because her front teeth looked perfect, nobody suspected that the
teeth in the back of her mouth were not properly aligned.  And because she
had never known differently, she didn't know that her teeth were not working
correctly.

It's easy to check the bite.  The dentist or orthodontist has the patient bite
down on a flat U-shaped piece of wax.  If the impressions on both sides of the
wax don't line up, the bite's not correct.  

If the other suggestions don't work, maybe you can ask the dentist when she's
in for her next checkup.

Good luck!

Well, I have been diagnosed with Irritable Bowl Syndrome, and it is NOT a
tummy ache.  It is very severe cramps with a bout of diarrea afterwards.
It is also an on again, off again thing.  I usually have an attack if I haven't
been eating properly, and to my knowledge there is no specific food that
sets is off.

Deb

    RE: .-1
    
    My own experience with IBS is that I need to control the amount of
    fiber I consume as well as adhere to a rather strict eating schedule. 
    By being extremely strict, I have been free from major problems and
    free from medication for 6+ years.  I still have the occasional bout,
    but that is nothing to the debilitating bouts I used to have.  
    
    Also,  I found that high fiber foods tend to cause a problem.  Foods
    like: popcorn (darn it...), peppers, onions, beans etc.  Pay close
    attention to what you eat for a few months and you will most likely be
    able to find a few foods which seem to start up a bout of problems.
    
    Dan

Add:

	STRESS
	greasy foods
	corn - fresh
	beef 
	

    I wonder if anyone, like parents, aunts, uncles or grandparents have
    IBS?  Nervous stomach if you will?  Reasoning here is that my neice
    developed much the same symptoms, at about the same age, and her IBS
    was diagnosed because both my sister inlaw and my husband tend to react
    to stress with stomach pain and loosse stools.
    
    Now try another angle,  could it be Giardia?  This almost sounds
    logical since the pain started with a flu.  Giardia is caused by a
    parasite ingested perhaps by undercooked food.  I had a real bad bout
    like this last year, the doctor decided to try a week of a specific
    antibiotic for Giardia for a week before doing "invasive" testing, such
    as endoscopy (a real unpleasant test) or upper/lower GI series.  He had
    done an ultrasound, but it was negative.  Both my regular internist and
    I were amazed when the diagnosis and cure were done, it was just such a
    simple treatment, 5 days of pills twice a day.  The specialist, the
    internist and I all thought we were dealing with something major!  I
    also think the germ could come from milk products too.
    
    Lyn

    I just remembered one more possibility, Chrones disease can affect
    people of all ages, from small children to adults.  there is a national
    Chrones disease foundation you could call for literature.
    
    My sister's husband has it, and I remember seeing him doubled up in
    pain many times.  His real "killer" foods were cucumbers and corn.
    Lyn