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On 2/20/95 Kathy Harden wrote:

>My 2 y old nephew (his mom has CD) is very large (off the charts for both
>height and weight) and so by no means appears to have CD.  However, he does
>have severe problems w/ constipation.  When my sister suggests CD to the
>Dr., he says it is impossible that Chad is malnourished given his size.  I
was wondering whether other children who have constipation (rather than the
>more typical stool problems) as the presenting sign of CD are of normal or
>above average size.  It seems to me that w/o the constant diarrhea, the
>weight loss and stunting might not occur.  Thanks for your input.

My 15 year old son, who has autism, was also off the charts in size when he
was young.  He had continual constipation/ feces retention.  At around five
he began having bowel movements in the middle of the night and we'd wake up
to murals etc.  The doctors always blamed this on a behavioral problem.  At
around that time we also began to notice the size of his bowel movments
increased...to what we not-so-delicately referred to as 'elephant poop'.  I
mentioned this to doctors over and over again, but not one of them seemed to
see any significance in this. At around eight years old he began to get fat.
 He ate compulsively and never seemed to know if he was full or not.  At
around 12 years old he began to have frequent, still voluminous, loose
stools.  The nocturnal feces smearing episodes would come in clumps,  every
night for a whole month, then a two or three months hiatus.  When he was
fourteen I made the gluten/casein connection between his bowel, behavior
problems.  I don't think, and never did think, that the nocturnal bowel
movements were part of a behavior problem (painting with it might fall within
that realm).  They disappeared when Andrew went on a GF/CF diet.  His whole
digestive system became normal for the first time in his life.  He's lost all
his excess weight over the past year and the only time he has bowel problems
is when he gets something off of his diet. (Easter basket stuff from the
other children has been particularly problematic this past week)  I also
thought it was significant when I asked a young lady who is verbal, has
autism, and who also had periodic problems with nocturnal bowel movements why
she did it.  Her answer was "I couldn't help it, I couldn't feel it until it
was to late."

I would take the off-the-chart growth seriously and thouroughly investigate
it.  Something may be going awry, as was happening with my son.  Maybe not
but maybe so.  Given the many positive changes the GF diet has provided for
my boy, I can't help but wonder what life would have been like for him if I'd
found out when he was two or three.....What if???.....

Chris Delnat, [log in to unmask]