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Here I go again, about my son.
 
He was 6 mths old when he got shigella, an intestinal virus.  He had just
been in daycare 5 days when he got sick.  No one else in the daycare was
sick, my other two children (also from the daycare) were tested and they
were not sick.
 
He had the runs, to the point of bleeding, he had some vomitting.  We were
lucky to catch it the day he started diarhea and then put him on a clear
liquid diet. His little body got very "mushy", ie. no muscle tone. The
doctor then decided he better go on the BRAT diet even though his diarhea
wasn't cleared up because his body was wasting. It took about 2 mths to
clear up and Cody never did seem the same after that in the way of bowel
movements. The doctor just thought it was after affects of the shigella and
since he got chicken pox at 10 mths it seemed as he was always sick.  At
about 12-14 mths is when he started getting sicker.
 
He would have been 14 mths when I first started my doctor visits, since one
day I got to daycare and they were frantic.  Cody had lunch, then had a nap,
then woke up and started throwing up.  I was enroute to daycare and by the
time I got there he had finished throwing up (3 times) and he was as white
as a ghost and his lips were purple, and his eyes were sunken and black
looking. I thought that since he had spaghetti for lunch it was too spicy
for him.  I took him to the GP and that was when we started the milk
elimination diet, first cows milk eliminated, the try goats milk, then
eliminate that, then try lactaid.  It was not a milk allergy cause he acted
the same on all.  We then started on the specialists. Of course all this
time I was feeding him very bland diet, toast, spaghetti without the sauce,
etc.  In retrospect all the wrong things, but I never heard of this disease
and there seemed to be no common thread between his foods and his reaction
since he was always reacting.
 
To sum this up I think the shigella was the trigger in Cody's body since it
weakened his intestines.
 
Karen, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
 
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