In 2010 we got a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis for our son Isaac who was then 27 months old. For a year and a half we had been concerned about his persistent soft stools. Now that we're going down the road of living with IBD in our house, we want to be able to share our story, connect with similar families or individuals, and increase our awareness of the experience of others.

Some of our related interests are diet, kids and families with IBD, and discussing and sharing experiences.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

speaking too soon....

Well, in the last blog I gave a good report, but it was a little too soon. Within an hour of posting, we were cleaning up brown watery puddles of diarrhea on the floor where Isaac couldn't run to the bathroom fast enough.

Bathroom troubles with tots presents a certain challenge. When Isaac started having his problems last year he wasn't potty trained yet. By the end of the year something clicked and he knew what was going on. But folks, that's still just a couple months ago! So when something like this happened, as parents, we have to ask the question if it's a potty training issue or something else. But on the other hand, it's easy to tell it's not a potty training issue when it's his second poop of the day and it's loose diarrhea compared to a nice stool.

The first thing that happens, simultaneous with the clean up, is a frustration, "What could be the cause of this?!" Everything we are doing is careful and systematic, and we don't like to see something we can't explain. But then we replay the day, and realize he must have got a "treat" at church that afternoon. "Treats" like granola bars and goldfish, and well, almost anything bought in a store, contain soy lecethin or soybean oil, and if Isaac gets these things in his system, they're going to take a fast track of evacuation. The gals watching him that day were different from the regular Sunday crew, so we're putting it down to that.

As some of you may know dealing with allergies, we just have to be on top of this with Isaac's caregivers. I think it paints a good picture if we explain that if he gets anything unacceptable, in eight hours he will have uncontrollable diarrhea all over our house in a trail to the bathroom.

Other than that, we've started using the spreadsheet Matt posted for tracking diet and symptoms. And that was a couple days ago. Isaac has seemed to bounce back fine from that episode of diarrhea. We quizzed Orry about foods at church. Usually Orry (our four year old) is conscientious of what Isaac eats and "if it has soy in it", but we couldn't get a clear answer if they ate something or what they ate.

This morning is an early morning at the zoo, and we'll report more later.

4 comments:

  1. bonnie says: so the bad diarrhea was wednesday. thursday's was not as bad (somewhere between 5 and 6). friday was no poop at all. and today is saturday and he just went. and it was a strange one. there was a pre-poop (6) and a good poop (3)and a post poop (6). the pre and post amounts were small. but i just spoke too soon. we just had round two and it was something like a 6.75. i'm thinking two things. we need to get on the SCD approved juices. and we need to stop eating beans for a while. and that last one isn't just for isaac... ;)

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  2. I find church nursery hard. My little guy has some possible allergies, so I always send him with his own snacks, but when I'm not there, I can't control what he puts in his mouth....

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  3. Crohnsmommy, thanks for your comment. So far it's sort of okay (we just started going to this place this year), but we have to be alert when there are unfamiliar caregivers.

    Plus, there are the ubiquitous germs. I like a healthy dose of germs, but you know that when the kids play together they are also going to share their viruses and so on....

    On the other hand, I guess it gives a good "excuse" to be more involved with the young-uns and the nursery at church!

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  4. perhaps putting a name tag on Isaac's back with a "do not feed me anything but the snack my parents provide" would be helpful when he is in the nursery. Even if you tell the workers to do just that, they can easily forget with all the kids running around. It seems a bit silly, but better then his belly hurting and cleaning up poo off the floor.

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