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  1. #1
    Globetrotter is offline Red Diamond level (10,000+ posts)
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    Default UPDATE and ? in OP! What is causing these stomach aches and diarrhea? (milk?)

    UPDATE: Thanks for the very helpful feedback!! About ten days after she stopped drinking milk (though I still gave a bit here and there mixed in various things, and she still has yogurt and cheese, as she always has) the stomach aches went away. Diarrhea went away even sooner. It's been almost a week now since they stopped, so I think that might indeed be the issue. The only confounding factor is that she also resolved a school issue that had been causing her stress around the same time. However, the symptoms started before she knew about this issue. I will reintroduce milk sometime to make sure, but I hate to ruin her week I guess I'll also schedule an appt. with her doctor to see what she says, and I read that there are some tests they can do to confirm it. Is anyone familiar with those?

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    WArning: bowel movements discussed!!

    My teen DD has a history of constipation and stress-induced stomach aches. However, in the past few weeks she's been getting recurrent stomach pain and loose motions, and I don't THINK it's related to either of those things.

    About three weeks ago, I noticed she wanted to go to the toilet more often than usual, but I thought it was due to her period. Then she got stomach aches, but again I thought period cramps. When it kept happening, I wondered if it was due to constipation since we were on vacation and she was eating a lot of processed grains, which is not typical for us. We brought the diet back to normal and it didn't stop, so I thought it was stress due to starting a new school. Well, she seems to be settling in well and quite excited about it, and two days ago she told me that she had loose motions too. The strange thing is, she can go through the whole school day without using the toilet, but this seems to happen in the evening and morning, accompanied by some cramping.
    She is fine during the day and doing all her normal daily activities, but this happens sometimes at night and almost always in the morning!!
    She is normally a great eater, but I noticed sometimes it interferes with her eating as she can't eat well when she's got a stomach ache.

    Then I realized that she started drinking a lot of milk regularly a few weeks ago, due to vit. D deficiency. She has never loved milk but over the years she has had a small glass some days without any issues. She also decided she wanted to grow tall and started having a few glasses daily about a month ago, and we were on vacation with milk drinkers and all the kids had milk regularly. I wonder if THAT could be it because it was a sudden increase.

    She has ALWAYS eaten yogurt and cheese (boatloads of it) without any issues, but I know cow's milk can be harsher for some folks. I stopped giving milk 1.5 days ago (and I believe she just so happened to not have other dairy since then, but I wasn't planning to stop all dairy) and she still had a stomach ache and loose motions this morning. I imagine it might take some time to clear out??

    The advice nurse was not particularly helpful, though she gave advice on dealing with the diarrhea - recommended a BRAT idea, lots of clear liquids.. She said I should bring her in if this continues, but I thought I would do my milk elimination first, then take her in.

    The only other theory I have is that it might be abdominal migraines, since she has a history of migraines, but it doesn't seem severe enough for that, but I don't know a lot about abd. migraines so I could be wrong. Her doctor once said that it's possible to have a "blockage" due to constipation and bowel movements move around it, so you're still having bowel movements even though you are constipated. I don't have any other theories

    Any thoughts?
    Last edited by Globetrotter; 09-19-2013 at 01:59 PM.
    "Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, "What? You, too? I thought I was the only one." C.S. Lewis

  2. #2
    egoldber's Avatar
    egoldber is offline Black Diamond level (25,000+ posts)
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    It could definitely be the dairy. My younger DD can eat cheese and yogurt with no issues, but if she has more than a very small amount of cow's milk she gets stomach pains and diarrhea.
    Beth, mom to older DD (8/01) and younger DD (10/06) and always missing Leah (4/22 - 5/1/05)

  3. #3
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    I started having issues with dairy when DD3 was about 6 months old. It started with ice cream, then milk. Almost every night I would wake up in the middle of the night with nausea, diarrhea, and/or vomiting. I had wondered about dairy, but it wasn't happening any other time of the day and I was having a cream cheese bagel every morning. As I started looking over our evening meals, most of them had some amount of cheese. The night that I was horribly sick was the night that I made enchiladas with loads of cheese. I cut dairy immediately and the problem cleared up. I seem to be able to handle small amounts of hard cheese with no problem, but ice cream and milk are killers. Goat milk is ok in small amounts and goat cheese seems to cause no problem at all.

  4. #4
    codex57 is offline Emerald level (3000+ posts)
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    Sounds a lot like me when I was a teen. My lactose intolerance really started in 5th or 6th grade. Didn't really become a problem where I had to watch my diet until 9th or 10th grade. It's grown more severe as I got older. Different dairy products affect me differently. If it's ice cream or whipped cream, I get bad effects nearly immediately. And the effects are worse. Processed cheese (especially cheese on a pizza) don't seem to affect me at all. Milk as a drink seems to be in the middle. That's just me though. But for your DD, it does sound a lot like what I experienced, even down to the different types of dairy affecting her differently. I've done trial and error experiments for years to figure out the details of my LI quirks.

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    This sounds almost exactly like how my lactose intolerance started. I was approximately your DDs age and problems started with ice cream, progressed to milk. I never had issues with yogurt or cheese. You could try a test run with Lactaid or something similar. The generics always worked fine for me. Strangely enough- I haven't had any issues with milk products since I have been pregnant! So about 15 years of intolerance and now normal.
    Living in a boys world- DH, DS, and an old hound dog

  6. #6
    Globetrotter is offline Red Diamond level (10,000+ posts)
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    Wow, now I am fairly convinced, but of course we must go through the trial and error process.

    I will go ahead and schedule an appt., but I'm wondering if I should still wait until next week to see if it improves minus the milk.. hmmm.
    "Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, "What? You, too? I thought I was the only one." C.S. Lewis

  7. #7
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    alirebco is offline Platinum level (1000+ posts)
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    Dairy or gluten would be my guess
    A, mom to Ethan age 5.5 and L age 2

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    Funny how for some it seems to come and go. I couldn't handle dairy when I was pregnant with DD2, and she HATES dairy with the exception of ice cream. I was fine after she was born, then I got pregnant with DD3. I expected problems during my pregnancy but had none. DD3 loves all things dairy.

    A note about lactaid.....obviously these things seems to vary greatly from person to person, but only the brand works for me. I don't get stomach upset if I take the Walgreens brand, but BOY do I have gas. Gas-mask worthy gas. I even make myself gag.

  9. #9
    codex57 is offline Emerald level (3000+ posts)
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    Withe Lactaid, only the fast acting stuff seems to have any effect on me now. Plus, I gotta time it. I gotta eat it about 15-30 min before I have bad dairy, then another dose immediately afterwards. Ideally, if I don't want any symptoms at all, a dose right at the beginning of the meal and one in the middle. Yes, that's 4 doses. Way more then recommended. Easier to just skip ice cream or just suffer through the consequences.

    Just experiment and find what she can live with. My sister is allergic to like half the common allergies and she just suffers through on the stuff she really loves to eat.

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    Other than dairy intolerance, I'd want to rule out IBS (you said it worsens with stress) and Celiac/gluten intolerance.

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