An honest place where autism, GFCF diet, and poop meet. This is the sister site to Tori's GFCF Blog. [Note: The images here are obviously graphic in nature. The purpose is not to be gross or funny -- any parent dealing with autism spectrum disorders and/or the gluten-free casein-free (GFCF) diet knows that poop is of primary concern. My goal here is to establish a place where our poop photos can help each other compare and contrast and thereby help our kids.]
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Yeast Colony!
Click on picture to enlarge it & see more detail.
Source: A fabulous GFCFSF mom
Style: Yeast
Notes: This shows an entire colony of yeast that came out in the toilet. Mom was taking Diflucan at the time.
Submitted by: [Mom's name is protected for privacy!]
Low Taurine
Source: NT girl
Style: Soft
Notes: Changes from digested stool to low-taurine stool (thus the lighter color)
Submitted by: Christel
Lack of Pancreatic Enzymes
Food Intolerance
Monday, July 21, 2008
Black Strings
click on photo to enlarge & see more detail
Source: 20-month old girl. Mom says, "She is as of yet undiagnosed. Her older brother is ASD/Asperger's syndrome. She isn't showing much in terms of ASD symptoms other than severe GI enterocolitis symptoms, reflux, GERD, food intolerance, etc. We are sure we would see ASD symptoms if she wasn't on Neocate or if we had continued to vaccinate her further."
Style: Unformed, diarrhea with black strings.
Notes: Mom reports: "She has been off of all yeast protocol supplements (Klaire Ther-Biotic Infant formula probiotics and 5mg biotin twice a day) for the past 8 days because we are in the middle of collecting stool samples for a complete stool analysis. She has been in obvious GI pain with a lot of posturing and seeking belly pressure. Her sleep is terrible. This morning she passed a loose bowel movement with some yellowish cheesy looking clumps and numerous long black strings. Since her diet is >95% Neocate elemental formula, we are very sure that this is NOT something she has eaten passing out undigested. We are wondering about yeast, bacteria, parasites?? We have never seen the black strings before.
Submitted by: Sheri
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Mucus, Yeast Die-Off
Click on photos to enlarge.
Source: 3-year old SPD boy.
Style: Soft, mucusy.
Notes: This poop woke my son up this morning crying. It seemed like it was acidic or otherwise hurt his skin (he wanted a shower afterward). I was surprised by how "held together" this poop was, especially looking at how liquidy it was last night (see post immediately after this one or click HERE for last night's poop). What I wanted to show the rest of you about this poop is the amazing amount of mucus in it. I don't think I've seen this much mucus before in my son's poop. The first picture is what it looked like in the pull-up; the second is when I put it in the toilet (it floated, by the way). I am guessing (hoping) that this is yeast die-off due to what has been happening in the past day and the fact that I've been treating for yeast overgrowth.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Bacteria, Virus, and Yeast Die-Off, Oh My!
click on photos to enlarge
Source: 3-year old SPD boy.
Style: Diarrhea.
Notes: Child had strep throat (bacteria) two weeks ago and was on antibiotic. Toward the end of the antibiotic course, the child contracted Coxsackie virus (herpangina; mouth/throat blisters). Boy was given a 24-hour antibiotic shot in each leg (not knowing at the time that it was a virus) and the next day started augmentin (another antibiotic). Because throat was so painful, boy's diet while sick consisted of easy-to-eat things like GFCFSF ice cream, and lemon-lime soda. After about 6-7 days on the antibiotic, child started showing strong signs of yeast overgrowth. Dad (mistakenly) gave 15 drops of GSE one day. Next day had 5 drops; next day 3. Antibiotics were stopped at Day 8 because child complained of pain in tummy and was very resistant to the administration of the antibiotics. Probiotics were resumed, and biotin dosage was increased. Child started complaining of pain when pooping and would have explosive poops in the shower while trying to avoid toilet at all costs (most likely due to pain associated with toilet). This morning, child passed lots of soft, but semi-formed, stool. A couple of hours later, teachers at summer camp report he was going to the bathroom a lot and had two poop accidents. Child also had loose stool twice and was sent home. At home, mom served 1/2 cap of activated charcoal to help absorb die-off. About an hour or two later, child woke up from nap with very dark, runny diarrhea. More pain and more dark diarrhea came a couple of hours later with black flecks. Tonight before bed, photos were taken. Child still complained of pain immediately before passing stool, as well as when pooping.
This poop is liquidy diarrhea, but there are chunks -- more like blobs -- in there as well. Some of the blobs are like amoebas with "hairy" tenticles. There also is an oilyness to the stool, and lots of bubbles/gas. There is mucous as well, and black flecks and specks.
Click on the photo to enlarge, and see some wacky stuff. First, you can see all the bubbles. Second, look at about 10:00 or so on the poop, at the outer perimeter. You'll see white strings. These were totally strange -- not long strings but like a little "mop" of strings or like a white spider. Finally, look at about 1:00 in this picture and see a couple very odd white chunks. Ew!
Look at how a "sludge" was left on the side of the potty. I had to wipe this out with toilet paper -- it didn't just pour out. This reminded me of getting my Turkish coffee grounds read in Istanbul.
There's that freaky white chunk again.
I expertly isolated this part so you could see the mucous.
This is what the potty seat bowl looked like after I had poured every last bit of the diarrhea into the toilet. You'll see there's a good bit left in there that was not coming out of the potty seat easily. You'll also see some "tracks" through the middle where it looks like I ran a finger or something. That was actually from some of those "mop-like amoebas" that I spoke of earlier.
High Dose Vitamin A Protocol
Click on photo to enlarge.
Source: 4-year old boy with PDD-NOS.
Style: Diarrhea.
Notes: Child struggles with yeast and parasites, but no bad bacteria. He has always since birth had exploding diarrhea but since starting Acetyl Carnitine the week before this picture, his poops were solid and formed but soft, so I think he was digesting his fats better. Today we started the High Dose Vitamin A protocol for gut measles and this is what we got - back to where we were. This poop is a darker brown with a tinge of dark green (something you would expect with bad bacteria) and it has some undigested raisins, a bunch of black flecks (which he always gets after eating anna's bread), and, in addition, you will see a bunch of orange flecks which is undigested CoQ-10 (no matter what we do he does not absorb CoQ-10). There are also strings in the poop, which I don't think is die-off because it is not the mucousy cheesy type strings; they are more like sewing thread strings. Whenever he has diarrhea he gets these strings but doesn't get them with his solid poops - hmmmmm. Now for this poop, it smells almost like cat vomit or sweet human vomit, which I attribute to the High Dose vit A because usually his poops, whether they are diarrhea or solid, smell of very strong metal.
Submitted by: Kristi
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Cyndi Newton Wins The Poop Blog Contest!
I'm very happy to announce that Cyndi Newton of Springfield, Virginia, has won The GFCF Poop Blog contest! Cyndi kindly submitted 2 great poop photos to boost the usefulness and variety of this site. Of 12 entries total, it was Cyndi's name that I pulled out of the hat! (well, it was my husband's shoe because I couldn't find a hat! ha ha ha)
As her prize, Cyndi will win a month's supply of diapers and pull ups for her sweetie pie son, Matthew.
I asked Cyndi to let us know a bit about her, and here's what she wrote:
Congratulations to Cyndi, and thanks to the others of you who submitted poop photos for the contest! Your efforts will help many!
As her prize, Cyndi will win a month's supply of diapers and pull ups for her sweetie pie son, Matthew.
I asked Cyndi to let us know a bit about her, and here's what she wrote:
I'm a 37 year old stay at home mom of Matthew, age 3 (my only child who took 7 years to make!) who was diagnosed with "moderate autism" at age 2.5. He is currently in the Fairfax County, Virginia, PAC program (preschool autism class) and also receives 6 hours/week of ABA at home (thankfully paid for by Tricare insurance!). My husband John is active duty Navy and is currently attending some schools in preparation for his return to the submarine force.
We knew from about the time Matthew was 18 months old that something was not right. He never pointed, only had 5 words at 24 months, and just didn't act like his peers. I called Early Intervention and he starting receiving speech therapy one hour per week. It was his speech therapist that first mentioned the possibility of autism and thanks to her, we took him to several doctors (a neurologist, a psychologist, and a developmental pediatrician) that all confirmed the diagnosis. I was actually hoping one of them would say, "no, your son is fine...he's just a late talker" but that never happened.
So after 3 opinions, we accepted the fact and pushed on. We immediately put him on the GFCF diet and saw results within two days of removing dairy...his language doubled! He is a lot more "with it" now and can focus better during therapy. We also saw a DAN doctor who put him on many supplements (there's about 15 of them) and antifungals for his gut yeast. We are still battling the yeast and will eventually try chelation to remove the toxic heavy metals from his system.
It's been 9 months since the first diagnosis and 6 months since going "bio-med" and we have seen good results. I continue to learn more every day and couldn't do this without the help of my on-line support friends like you (yahoo groups rock!). This has been a difficult year for us and it will be even more difficult when John deploys next summer, but I try to stay positive and learn and do everything I can to help Matthew. We hope that one day he will be mainstreamed but more importantly that he will lead a healthy and happy life. Here is our blog address to keep up with his progress: http://matthewsautismjourney.blogspot.com/
Congratulations to Cyndi, and thanks to the others of you who submitted poop photos for the contest! Your efforts will help many!