TMI (Too Much Information)

Now you've been warned. Feel free to look away if the discussion of bodily functions makes your stomach turn. ;)

A. has had stool withholding issues since before he turned 2 years old. We tried all the usual stuff, like increasing his fiber and water intake, but nothing helped. He was regularly going 12-14 days without a bm, and it completely destroyed his generally sweet disposition. I imagine I'd be irritable if I was holding it in for two weeks at a time! He eventually was put on Miralax (Polyethylene Glycol), which helped him go about once/week. After a year on daily Miralax, his new ped. added in a stimulant laxative. I regularly fret over whether any of this is good for him, but I know that the alternative isn't good for him either.

Then about two months ago I found out that another mom I know has a son with encopresis, too. Or I should say *had* these same issues. She said that they went on a gluten-free diet and saw a huge change in a number of his behaviors, including the withholding. Being lazy (we'd tried a food elimination diet in the fall, though I wasn't paying attention to how it effected A's output), I didn't feel like pursuing a GF diet right now, but I filed that info away in the back of my mind. The two laxatives we're using work relatively well, and aren't causing obvious harm, so... I don't know.

So yesterday, I take him to the pediatrician for a productive cough that he's had for a couple of months now. No other symptoms. I thought I was hearing wheezing, and the dr. confirmed that (we went through asthma with N., so it's familiar territory for us). A. also has some weird rashes that I wasn't sure about - turns out it's eczema. A. used to have eczema as a baby, and periodically will get a patch or two, but it never looked like what he's got now so I didn't associate the two. Now I know.

I can't help but start to put all this stuff together - the encopresis, eczema, and asthma. I also can't help but think that a food sensitivity might be to blame for these, as well as some of his behaviors that I've thought might be sensory related. It looks like I'm going to be pursuing some kind of diet change, but I want to have a game plan, so I'm going into Research Mode and trying to find out as much as I can. I'd be relieved if we could find an obvious food connection, or some environmental connection, that would allow us to get him off of all the meds that he's currently on. There's just got to be a better way.