Reply to DD12 missed a lot fo school this year due to stomach aches

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[quote=Anonymous]OP, I am going to agree and disagree with many of the posters.

This could have been my DD at age 13.  She was sent to school with a kind remark about hoping she'd feel better.  There were a few things that didn't seem right in addition to headaches and stomachaches; I put them in the back of my mind for future reference.  One of these was that my formerly very active child became a complete couch potato (which I chalked up to adolescent hormonal changes).

After nearly six months of this she had a fainting episode.  I took her to the doctor and everything checked out.  About a week later I called the doctor and said I just didn't feel comfortable and mentioned that DD got hives on her back at least weekly.  The pediatrician then referred her to an allergist who found, in one visit, DD had severe environmental allergies and asthma and all her sinus cavities were almost completely blocked.  It took two sinus surgeries to correct the problem.

Neither the pediatrician nor I had picked this up because DD had no sniffles, no red eyes, nothing--everything had just gone straight to her sinuses, and she felt no pain when they were pressed.

Here's what I would do in retrospect.  Enlist her help in seeing if you can identify what the problem could be--make it a fun mystery.  Keep a written list of every odd thing--one thing I wouldn't have noticed then but found out later was a big clue was that DD had stopped breathing through her nose and was mouth breathing.

Make the list specific--if she has a headache, find out where it is on her head.  If she says she has a stomach ache make her localize it.  Note what she is eating and what her activities are and how she is sleeping 9very important).  If she goes to the school nurse, ask the nurse to report to you in the same detail.  (Tell the nurse you suspect allergies and are making a record for the doctor.) If your DD is forthright about bodily functions, you may be able to note things about her bowel functions, but if not I would tread lightly on this one, even though constipation could be an issue for your DD and the source of her problems.

See what kind of pattern you find after two weeks or so.  Something pretty solid may be obvious by then and you can report it to the doctor.  If not, try taking some things out of her diet and see if there is improvement.  Dairy and wheat can be the biggest offenders.  Start with one, then try the other.  Then sit back and look at everything.  If nothing changes you could be dealing with just anxiety.  But you could be seeing a pattern you can then report to the doctor.

It is important to remember that doctors can't really deal with diffuse nonspecific symptoms like headaches and stomach aches.  They can deal with objective symptoms--in our case it was the hives that led the pediatrician to make a referral.  The more objective signs you can pick up the better.

Good luck![/quote]

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