The Boy had his appointment with the gastrointestinal specialist today. We were very concerned about his pooping and the consistency and his difficulty in controlling his bowels as a result. We thought that it might be due to the radiation.
I'm not sure how definitive the answer was as to whether the radiation had any effect, but The Boy has been ordered to cut down on the fruit juice. I had thought about that awhile ago, but I guess it never really stuck. Fruit juice has a lot of sugar, and the sugar is the likely cause of his loose bowels.
Of course, I'd been trying to say on numerous occasions that I didn't want The Boy to have too much candy and sugar. For potty training or otherwise. Because I know it's not good for him. Particularly, it's not good for him as a cancer survivor, because cancer feeds on sugar.
It was more important for us to get the calories in him, hence the permissiveness with the juice, but I'm more than happy to scale back on the treats. He can have a little bit of diluted juice at each meal; the rest of the time, it's water or the occasional cup of soy milk.
So maybe the radiation made him more sensitive, but we're going to try cutting down on the sugar, particularly juice, and seeing how it works.
5 comments:
My daughter has also been very sensitive to fruit juice. I don't know what she would do if she ever got undiluted juice! And I don't think it's the sugar content either - adding candy to her diet (in limited quantities, but still far exceeding the amount she was getting just drinking juice) has not had any effect on her digestive system. I'm not sure what it is about the juice...
Anyway, hope you see some positive results!
Ausonie also has what I would call mild chronic diarrhea, and she is on a SUPER healthy diet, I mean really ideal. NO juice EVER, a piece of fruit after each meal, plenty of veggies, no candy, minimal icecream in the summer etc. When her pediatrician saw her food diary that I kept, she said that her consistency is probably what all kids' stools SHOULD look like if they took in the amount of roughage she gets. I disagree. I didn't push for bloodwork and a full workup because I know she'd be terrible with blood draws, endoscopy etc, and I wanted to try every other alternative first. Last thing I tried was putting her on a lactase supplement, because it sounded to me like it could be a degree of lactose intolerance. She had normal poops for 2 weeks, and by the time I pat myself on the back on my genious solution, the loose stools returned. Next thing I will try is gluten-free for a couple of weeks, but that will be hard to do...
As for the juice, it is bad for them on so many levels: the absorbtion is super quick, faster than candy even, and what is not absorbed acts as an osmotic pump that pulls water from the blood into the gut (thus dehydrating the child) and that results in diarrhea. In my humble opinion (and I won't even brag about my PhD in nutrition because it is from Romania and, as my husband puts it, "I don't know what mumbo jumbo they teach you there, but beef can't be bad for you" lol), juice is only ok in 2 instances:
- you are on a liquid diet for detox or pre-surgery or whatnot and that is all the nutrition you get
- it is heavily combined with vegetable juice, which tends to counterbalance the above mentioned effects
Hmmm maybe I'll write a post about this, as this comment is getting too long :) Good luck to David and happy to hear he is doing well!
Ausonie also has what I would call mild chronic diarrhea, and she is on a SUPER healthy diet, I mean really ideal. NO juice EVER, a piece of fruit after each meal, plenty of veggies, no candy, minimal icecream in the summer etc. When her pediatrician saw her food diary that I kept, she said that her consistency is probably what all kids' stools SHOULD look like if they took in the amount of roughage she gets. I disagree. I didn't push for bloodwork and a full workup because I know she'd be terrible with blood draws, endoscopy etc, and I wanted to try every other alternative first. Last thing I tried was putting her on a lactase supplement, because it sounded to me like it could be a degree of lactose intolerance. She had normal poops for 2 weeks, and by the time I pat myself on the back on my genious solution, the loose stools returned. Next thing I will try is gluten-free for a couple of weeks, but that will be hard to do...
As for the juice, it is bad for them on so many levels: the absorbtion is super quick, faster than candy even, and what is not absorbed acts as an osmotic pump that pulls water from the blood into the gut (thus dehydrating the child) and that results in diarrhea. In my humble opinion (and I won't even brag about my PhD in nutrition because it is from Romania and, as my husband puts it, "I don't know what mumbo jumbo they teach you there, but beef can't be bad for you" lol), juice is only ok in 2 instances:
- you are on a liquid diet for detox or pre-surgery or whatnot and that is all the nutrition you get
- it is heavily combined with vegetable juice, which tends to counterbalance the above mentioned effects
Hmmm maybe I'll write a post about this, as this comment is getting too long :) Good luck to David and happy to hear he is doing well!
We had always allowed David to have juice because there were times when he just wasn't eating much, when on treatment, and we figured that he'd get at least something out of it. We don't give it to Jesse because Jesse's diet is varied and nutritious.
I had tried several times to get David off so much juice after he was off treatment, but with other family members in the house not really paying attention, it never worked out. Now that the doctor said it, that's how it will be.
Of course you had to Molly, when kids are sick and can't take in a lot of food, those calories are so precious that it doesn't matter in what form you get them in. And the darn juice is so addicting, that it can be hard to restrict afterwards. I hope Daniel's problem is an easy fix :)
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