My daughter is 15 months old, she has had very explosive watery diarrhea for about ten days if not longer. she has had no fever or no signs of abdominal discomfort. i have not noticed any mucus in the stool. however this morning when she woke up the BM smell filled up the entire room it was an extremely strong fish smell. for about 4-5 days now she has drank two bottles of pedialyte and has only eaten toast, yogurt, rice, pasta, and banana. what are the possibilities of this? ... the crazy part is i took her to the pediatrician a couple days ago and brought her stool sample. the Dr. if that's what you want to call her brushed it off and told me its because of daycare. she didn't even take the sample and send it out. At this point i have decided that was not good enough, i just want to hear some possibilities to prepare myself
Thank you everyone for the advise! We sent out about six bottles of stool in which all tests came back negative, yayyyy. The Dr. had told us at that point it could be a stomach virus or just some some irritation. So after finding out the results guess who got the stomach virus; MOMMY AND DADDY!
Ten days is way too long for her to have explosive diarrhea and not see a doctor. She needs to get in to her doctor today. Two bottles of pedialyte over a 4 - 5 day period of time is not enough to keep her hydrated.
No idea what it could be but I'd get her to her doctor....10+ days of diarrhea is a long time particularly for a 15 month old and you want to make she doesn't get dehydrated...
Hope she feels better
Our pediatrician told us that once a gut is irritated it can stay irritated for a long time even after the initial source of irritation has resolved itself.
Our son was about 15 months old when he had diarrhea for - I'm not kidding - roughly 8 weeks.
He was feeling fine and eating fine but the diaper rash was hard to deal with.
You don't need to eat solids for a long time as long as you stay well hydrated and watch your electrolytes.
Pedialyte is great for that - keep her on it every day.
Yogurt might help after the diarrhea is done but some kids are sensitive to milk products for awhile while their gut is irritated so stop with all milk products for awhile - just let her have all the Pedialyte she wants.
Banana, Rice, Toast, and Applesauce is what makes up the BRAT diet for helping to get over diarrhea.
Hold off on the pasta and yogurt.
Once there is improvement - go very slowly with returning to a normal diet.
Going too fast will cause relapses.
Additional:
Ladies, WE LIVED through 8 weeks of diarrhea.
So I know it can happen.
AND even with working with the doctor - there is no magic wand to be waved to make it all better.
In the absence of viral, bacterial, parasites and any allergies - diarrhea just has to run it's course.
Not getting enough fluids and not keeping electrolytes can make it deadly but as long as you ARE taking care of those things then there is no crisis or emergency.
There's no fever, the kid plays and feels fine - he (my son) just had horrible runny diapers that I had to meticulously stay on top of and had to clean him and grease him up (I really slathered on the butt grease thickly) to keep the diaper rash as manageable as possible.
Eventually it does get better but it feels like it takes forever to get there.
My babies always had diaper rash if they had diarrhea that long and I would use Desitin or A&D ointments to protect their bottoms, and that particular combo always smelled very, very fishy. It just reeked to me.
Turns out I have the most sensitive nose in the family and no one else was bothered by the smell like I was. So perhaps you are more sensitive to the fishy smell than others.
But you do need to keep a log of how frequent the diarrhea is, color, consistency, take a picture and track her diet and then get a 2nd opinion.
Daycare babies do suffer much more from all the germs they are repeatedly exposed to, so it's possible your baby has contacted one virus after another and is just not bouncing back.
I think you're supposed to take a stool sample after ten days of consecutive diarrhea. So good for you for suggesting it and taking one along. I would go to another doctor. It could be giardia - which is a parasite. It's not terribly serious (there is medication for it) but it can produce a strong fishy smell to the diarrhea. She could have caught it from her daycare - the thing is, you will want to find out if she has it so you can alert the daycare as well.
I would take her in to see someone else for a second opinion. Poor little thing - trust your instinct and good luck :)
It could be so many different things, virus, allerigies, etc..
I would get a second opinion and start your little one on some probiotics. That at least will help keep the good bacteria stay in her gut and ease the diarrhea.
I would call your pediatrician.
My son had diarrhea for a couple of weeks when he was about that age. I don't remember it smelling like fish, but I don't really remember what it smelled like other than diarrhea.
I took him to the doctor. She did order stool samples and asked us to try eliminating dairy to see if that helped. It did not. The tests all came back negative.
She let us know that this is not entirely uncommon. This is an age where kids are introduced to more and more table foods, and sometimes their digestive systems take some time to work through the "newness." They call it "toddler diarrhea."
She told us to keep him hydrated, notice if there are any changes or if he started to act sick or develop a fever. She said to give her a call if anything like that happened or if the diarrhea continued after a certain amount of time.
I would call your pediatrician. It is very possible that this is "toddler diarrhea," and you just have to wait it out. But it could be something, and I would want to rule out any medical concerns.
I would definitely see your doctor and have a stool sample done. Sounds kind of like giardia, but could be a ton of different things.
I would get an appointment as soon as you can as dehydration can happen pretty quickly in kids of this age.
Good luck!
Could be rotavirus. Our son had that when he was two and it was horrible! You never forget the smell and never-ending diarrhea and resulting rashes. I had to keep him out of daycare for the two weeks he was sick.
Why would you NOT be concerned?
She should be seen by a doctor. Poor baby.
I'd get a 2nd opinion. Don't take in a stool sample. Wait until they request one. It has to be collected in a very specific way to be sure it is a good sample.
i would get a second opinion from another pedi. get answers or get another dr.
If the brat diet isn't working then its time to see the doctor. A lot of times little ones systems just get out of wack and they just don't have the immune system to bring it back to where it needs to be. Yogurt is great but it has sugars in it that kind of counteract the probiotics so it doesn't end up helping. See what your doctor says
2nd opinion.
Probiotics.
I'd take her in, at the very least to confirm she's not dehydrated or has more than a virus. If you can't see her normal doctor, please consider Urgent Care.
Go to the pediatrician's office. Now.
