On Fri, 26 Mar 1999 Kris Moore <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Well...she has finally been diagnosed with "visceral hyperalgesia", which
means normal sensations in her gut are being read by her brain as pain and
sometimes nausea.  This is a lasting side effect of a stomach bug she had a
year ago, which also caused the LI.

The key to this diagnosis was that I finally realized that emotions -- even
positive, like excitement -- and stress triggered her GI symptoms.  This was
a
difficult connection to make, because she is NOT a nervous, anxious type
child
and it really has absolutely nothing to do with her personality or her
emotional make-up

He started her on a medication that he said should make her pain free very
soon, and then her system could "relearn" how to properly react to normal
sensations in her gut.


Kris,

Forgive me, but I just have to say that this diagnosis of "visceral
hyperalgesia" sounds off the real track to me.  As someone who has been
dairy/wheat allergic and intolerant for about 30 years, I have been given
that stress diagnosis too many times.  Go ahead and give your daughter
medications for pain and see if that works.  Pretty soon they will be
telling her to take Prozac.  I wager her diary pain comes back eventually
because I also wager it is a physiological GI problem.  Doctors have a very
poor track record when it comes to diagnosing GI problems and their first
inclination is to give people drugs for stress or tell them to see a
therapist.  Case in point:  even though the cause of ulcers has been known
to be caused by heliobacter pylori for years now, doctors are still
prescribing milk and antacids for ulcers.

If your daughter is having any kind of problems with diary, my suggestion
would be to just keep it away from her, because if she is reacting to it,
she might not find out until she has done too much damage to her immune
system, decades later.



***********************
Cheryl Johnson
Explorer
***********************