Undiagnosed but better on all liquid diet

[Bikeguy]

My daughter has had tests done over the past 1.5 years to try and diagnose in her pain, bloating, some nausia and "I feel like I swallowed a watemellon feeling." Tests she has had:
Emptying study
Colenoscopy (with biopsy to test for various things)
Endoscope (with biopsy to test for various things)
Food allergy tests
Many blood test.

She has not been diagnosed with anything, yet. She gets terrible gas pains way up inside and finds the only thing that helps is to lay down. Needless to say, she lays down a lot!
Recently, she's tried an an all liquid diet. It's only been about four days but amazingly, her symptoms have almost entirely vanished.

My question is... what types of disease (or health issue) might this point to?

Thanks!!

 

[tots]

Before I was diagnosed and I would have an episode I always went a liquid diet. Thats what probably kept me from getting diagnosed earlier. After awhile that didnt work, I got sick enough I had to keep going to the dr. Keep at it and dont stop until they know whats wrong with you!

 

[Bikeguy]

What were you diagnosed with and how were you treated?

 

[Bikeguy]

She tried Bentyl for about 8 weeks but it did nothing.

 

[DanHerefordshire]

Did the colonoscopy endoscopy show any inflamation or any signs of anything else?

also colonoscopy and endoscopy only test a small part of the digestive system they cant reach about 20ft of small intestine.. you may want to look into a pill cam test or ct scan barrium xray...

also bear in mind the liquid diet may heal any problems for a couple of years so any tests done therafter may be more difficult to show problems

 

[Bikeguy]

They found no inflammation. He said her colon was "perfect".
The endoscope showed shortend villi, which is why we did allergy testing.
She also tried elimination diets with not improvements.

We'd be very, very happy if the liquid diet could help heal her, even for a relatively short period of time.

I'm not enthusiastic about her getting a CT scan because of all the radiation.

I wonder why nobody has suggested the pill camera. We are scheduled to see a specialist 3 hours away in about a week.

 

[Bikeguy]

If she's healing by being on a liquid diet, how long might it take? Might a couple of weeks heal her?

She also tried a round of Flagyl.

 

[DanHerefordshire]

Its so difficult to say some people do it for six months some six weeks some two weeks..

aparrently 6-8 weeks lets the digestive system fully heal and repair itself a bit like a broken leg

 

[David]

Has she had a hydrogen breath test? Has anyone mentioned Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth? That can cause the symptoms you mentioned and blunted villi. I would also expect a liquid diet to help a bit in many SIBO situations.

And it's impossible to say if the liquid diet is in any way promoting any sort of healing so conjecture about duration it would take to heal is only that.

 

[Bikeguy]

No mention of small intestine bacterial overgrowth. Why would a liquid diet help such a condition. Wouldn't Flagyl kill that off that bacterial and give her some lessening of symptoms at least for a while?

 

[David]

Flagyl would likely help but with SIBO they'll often give a combination of antibiotics to cover both aerobic and anaerobic organisms. Did they already put her on flagyl at one point?

A liquid diet could help for a variety of reasons such as improved intestinal motility (it would move through her intestines faster) and it's broken down into easier to absorb constituents. So for example since her villi are blunted her ability to absorb is reduced so the unabsorbed nutrients help the overgrowth flourish. The more she is able to absorb the less the bacteria consume and ferment and less gas and bloating is produced.