Bloating and Stool Color

[KTas]

Hey everyone. It seems like when one symptom improves, something else creeps up My son is quite fatigued, bloated and his stool has been an odd greyish color. No pain, just stomach is hard and noticeably distended. We gave him an iron pill day before yesterday, and yogurt with no added sugar as per his Drs advice. That’s all I can think of that was new to him. He’s still on 90% ensure shakes and prednisone plus remicade. Do any of these sound like they could be the cause? Will call the Dr. if this continues...but beginning to get concerned. Any experience with this?

 

[my little penguin]

Remicade /ensure shake s and pred would not cause the bloating fatigue or weird stool color
Fatigue would be crohns flaring which you know
Bloating is he gulping air due to belly pain ??
Definitely let the doc know about the bloating and grey stool color .
Any additives in the yogurt ?
Sucralose ?
Or just plain Greek yogurt without sugar ?
Crohns takes a long time to heal the gut even with the right meds (think months not days )
Iron pills can cause constipation or diarrhea-those are fun ones

 

[crohnsinct]

Could be anything really but grey stool is sometimes caused by bile duct problems. Keep an eye on it and if it continues place a call.

Second the question about additives to the yogurt. If it has any artificial sweetener it would rip my daughter to shreds.

 

[GirlwiththeCurl]

I second concerns about the bile ducts/liver with the gray stool.

 

[KTas]

Have any of you dealt with this?

 

[crohnsinct]

The thing we have to try to remember is everyone has GI changes day to day. We all have bloating it gas or diarrhea or odd colored stool. Yes one of my daughters has had that gray stool for a bit and as mysteriously as it appeared it disappeared. It is just that we forget these things happen because we are so entrenched in the IBD world.

If he had been on EEN reintroducing food has to go very slowly and anything could upset matters.Are you working with a registered dietician on the reintro of food? We generally start by adding about 3 ounces of plain grilled chicken and a half a cup of rice a day for 3-7 days and then meet and discuss next step.

I wouldn’t worry too much unless there is a downward trend and the pale stool continues. The good thing is you get labs with every infusion so if there is something going south with the liver it will likely show in labs.

Maybe pull the foods you recently added and see if things straighten back out.

 

[GirlwiththeCurl]

I think Cic probably has a lot more good advice about ibd and it's quirks than I do.

Liver disease can be associated with ibd but it's not so very common. Here are things to look for in addition to gray or white stools that point to the liver: itching with no associated rash, yellowing of the skin or white of the eyes, upper right quadrant abdominal pain or upper right back pain, dark urine.

My daughter has liver disease in addition to ibd and these are all things we were told to look out for. However, we do see quite a bit of variation in her stool color and haven't run into anything acutely serious (so far). If the stool color normalizes on its own I probably wouldn't worry. I would be concerned enough to ask for blood work if the gray color persists or if his stool color turns very white/light gray. If his stool turned white and he had jaundice or itching I wouId call the doctor. If he had all of those plus a fever or severe/increasing abdominal pain I would go to the ER. I don't think it's likely you'll run into these things: this is just a "what if" road map.