I have a 13-year-old T1D son who has been experiencing some on and off stomach issues. Sometimes it is just a stomach ache that lasts a couple of days and sometimes in includes stomach acid being regurgitated (sorry to be gross). All of his celiac tests have some back negative, but I am very concerned about what this might be. I suppose it could be acid reflux, but seems odd for a person his age. Not sure if I am clear on what the symptoms of celiac look like or if I should have him scoped to test for celiac since he has only had the blood test version. Any help or advice will be much appreciated.
I have a 16 year old teen diagnosed last Feb 2013. I have been happy to change up his diet and take away the inflammatory foods that regularly aggravate (if not create) Type 1. Grains and Dairy, processed foods and sugars and last but not least chemicals. The auto-immune system is located in and around the gut. Creating a happy internal environment will also assist in the auto-immune response. Hence, why it is so common for Type 1's to develop Celiac and Thyroid problems down the line. Your son may not show Celiac in blood work, but be Gluten/Wheat intolerant as are most people.
Simply taking him off gluten/grains for a period of time and seeing if his stomach issues pass is the easiest thing to do.
I did not bother to scope. I have had a lifetime of "gut" issues. Cleaning up our diet and changing the family diet since diagnosis is the BEST thing that we could have ever done.
We are looking at Dis-Ease in different light and spending all of our time and energy in living well and not focused on Type 1.
Our lives have changed.
We have the same issue with our 14 year-old son. A daily zantac 150 helps but does not completely alleviate symptoms. Like you, blood tests for celiac come back negative, and, ketones are negative. I was just thinking it to stress but maybe there is something more to it.
My son is also 14. Diagnosed T1D 2 years ago. He started having stomach pains/ nausea about 6 months ago. He is on Prilosec which only seems to help a little. He wakes up almost every morning with the pain and nausea but it normally disappears after a few hours. His celiac test is also negative, although he was tested today at his 3 month check up at the endocrinologist. Will let u know the results. I think there is definitely something up here that all of our kids have the same symptoms. Btw… His A1C was 6.6 today. Woohoo!
Hi Chris. My 13 yr old daughter was also having stomach issues for quite some time.
April will be 3 yrs since diagnosis. The stomach aches started about a year later.
We went to her ped. 3 times, endo 2 times and 1 trip to the emergency room. Nothing. Finally I took her to our naturalist.
I had a suspision it was lactose intolerance.(no one in our family has it so it took a while for the light bulb moment) Anyway, our naturalist asked her to have no dairy for 2 weeks and see what happens. Sure enough, lactose intolerance. :( Sometimes it's a simple answer. Praying you find out soon so your son can feel better.
I would give the celiac idea some more consideration. There is a gigantically higher risk for those with T1D to have celiac than people in he general population. My daughter is T1D & celiac. She did have the celiac antibodies present and have stomach damage so it was a straightforward diagnosis in her case.
Celiac can be tricky because the symptoms are so wide ranging or even non-existent for some. I was diagnosed with celiac a few years ago and I didn’t even realize how bad my symptoms were until I didn’t have them any more. Also, I had some serious issues (bone loss in my body and mouth) that could have been devastating to me if I had never been diagnosed and eliminated gluten.
Yes, celiac was definitely the first thing to pop into my head. My son just had the yearly blood work done again (including the test for celiac)two weeks ago and it again came back negative. I may push to have him scoped to double check for celiac. He also had an upper GI test done (drink a barium liquid and they can see via x-ray the flow of things.) We did discover that his stomach empties slower than the average person's, although the gasto. doctor does not believe it is gastro paresis (sp.), which some people with T1D can get. The doctor seems to think his stomach issues are, in part, brought on by adolescent stress of some sort. I'm not sure I'm buying that completely. He is taking an acid reflux medication and a low dose antibiotic for the stomach emptying issue. He feels good now, so I guess we will wait to see how things go before we do more tests, but I may try to eliminate dairy and/or wheat from his diet to see if either of these things make a difference. I hate to see him taking medications if they are unnecessary. Thanks for all of the helpful comments and advice!
Celiac can be tough to diagnose. Is he having any unexplained lows? That is what tends to happen with celiac in T1D. If so, you can either get him scoped, or maybe just do a trial of gluten-free for a couple of weeks and see if that helps with the symptoms. If it does, then I think you probably don't need to get him scoped. But you have to make sure you avoid ALL gluten for the elimination trial to work.
Otherwise, try eliminating dairy for a few weeks. That tends to be a common trigger of IBS, and the symptoms you describe could well be IBS rather than celiac.