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I was interested to read in a recent post about a daughter who was
experiencing GI tract problems and that a physician told the mother that
the daughter was being manipulative.  When my 12 month old daughter was
beginning to have constipation which became progressively more severe over
the next 6 months, an initial comment from one of her physicians (by now
she had several) was that she was "manipulating" us.  We found this
difficult to accept in the face of her decline from 90% for height and 85%
in weight for her age relative to average (50%) at 9 months to 90% for
height and below (off the scale) for weight at 18months.  Fortunately, the
day before they would have started tube feeding, the diagnosis of CD was
made.  Within 3 days we had a new daughter who went from not being able to
walk to one who was running around the hospital hallways.  It was clearly
not manipulation.
        Sorry for the self-oriented digression, but I was wondering how
often the diagnosis of manipulation was made to parents with CD kids and
encourage anyone who receives or hears of manipulation as a cause of GI
problems to seek other opinions.

Joe DiMario