EOE and allergies | Imamother

amother

Wed, Nov 08 2023, 7:49 pm

If anyone can give me some insight. My child has a lot of food allergies. The allergist was adamant I go to a Gi to rule out EOE. I went. They want to do an endoscopy. My question is- anyone with a child who has EOE and no vomiting. My child only vomits when she eats her allergen.
What happens if she does have EOE what is the treatment for it? Has anyone been through this that can give some info

amother

Bisque

Wed, Nov 08 2023, 8:33 pm

My daughter has asymptomatic EoE. We only found out during an endoscopy for celiac. She needed a few more endoscopies until we figured out what the allergy is. The only treatment she has is staying off the allergen.

amother

Wed, Nov 08 2023, 8:39 pm

Some other symptoms she has is eating small amount at a time, picky eater, blood work showed something high , I forgot name something with e… she said that can be indicitive of allergies or EoE …. And especially since the allergist is pushing to rule it out .

amother

DarkYellow

Wed, Nov 08 2023, 8:43 pm

If you know the offending food, can you jus eliminate it completely? Or are there still symptoms even when that food is removed from her diet?
My dd's gi is a bit more conservative and he advised us to remove the food we suspected before doing an endoscopy. We did and the symptoms went away bh so we never did the endoscopy. It's been a bunch of years since then and dd just doesn't eat that food.

amother

Dimgray

Wed, Nov 08 2023, 9:01 pm

High eosinophils are indicative of any thing on the allergy spectrum - could be from food allergies, asthma, or EOE and I think even from eczema. I'm not a Dr but I wouldn't run to scope if your child was growing normally. My son has EOE and when I asked about symptoms a different child was having, she told me it's highly unlikely there is any gastro disorder if a child is growing normally. Especially if there is no pain or other symptoms.

Treatment for EOE is either to remove the offending food(s) ( if you can figure it out) or a steroid that coats the esophagus - swallowed flovent/budesonide slurry or recently dupixent was approved for EOE

amother

Dimgray

Wed, Nov 08 2023, 9:03 pm

amother Bisque wrote:

Probably whatever you thought was symptoms for celiac was actually symptoms for EOE. EOE can cause low weight gain/falling off the growth curve.

Just One

Wed, Nov 08 2023, 9:19 pm

amother OP wrote:

Those symptoms are all highly indicative of EoE. I would recommend you go through with the endoscopy especially in a child with allergies. EoE if left unchecked can cause scarring and narrowing of the esophagus. I've seen asymptomatic patients diagnosed as adults with significant damage which needs invasive procedures to correct.

If EoE is indeed diagnosed, the treatment options include diet modification with close monitoring, mild topical steroids or immunologics like dupixent (mostly when child also has eczema). For follow up endoscopies, nasal endoscopy, which is done without sedation is becoming more widely available and makes monitoring the EoE so much easier (although for the initial diagnosis a traditional endoscopy will need to be performed).

Just One

Wed, Nov 08 2023, 9:21 pm

amother Bisque wrote:

What were the symptoms that lead to doing the endoscopy?

You're lucky that her EoE responded to diet changes. Many cases don't.

Last edited by Just One on Wed, Nov 08 2023, 9:33 pm; edited 1 time in total

amother

Dimgray

Wed, Nov 08 2023, 9:40 pm

Just One wrote:

Do you know of a pediatric gastro in the NY/NJ area that will do the transnasal endoscopy. Seems like it's more used for adults...

amother

Bisque

Wed, Nov 08 2023, 11:30 pm

Just One wrote:

What were the symptoms that lead to doing the endoscopy?

You're lucky that her EoE responded to diet changes. Many cases don't.

A proper celiac diagnosis is only done with an endoscopy. During the endoscopy where she was indeed diagnosed with celiac, doctor noticed rings and took samples which showed EoE. They suspected that gluten might be the culprit for the EoE also, but that wasn't the case. After being gf for a number of yrs we started to pursue the EoE issue. She had multiple scopes while eliminating different foods, and finally the offending food was identified by the fact that the rings were much less.
The only symptom we could see the entire time was that certain foods were harder for her to swallow. It wasn't a major issue, though.
Yes, we're lucky, but at the time it was hard to believe that she had to keep to all the diet changes, since she wasn't suffering from any major issues. She's doing well bh.
Just to add, she didn't have any major celiac symptoms either...

amother

Thu, Nov 09 2023, 9:44 pm

So I should be doing the endoscopy ? It’s so hard to know what’s right. But if she does have EoE it’s important to know and if she doesn’t than we know her pickiness is not from that

marineparkmom

Thu, Nov 09 2023, 10:18 pm

Why not do the endoscopy? The child will be asleep the whole time and the prep/ recovery is not a big deal at all… the main thing is to use a good hospital who has a good anesthesia team….most adults wouldn’t think twice about getting an endoscopy for themselves…. And in terms of anesthesia for kids we are very comfortable getting kids tubes and taking care of their tonsils and adenoids…

amother

Sat, Nov 11 2023, 7:40 pm

She’s only 2 this has been from around birth. Not picky from the lyme aspect.
I guess im going to make sure it’s a good dr.
Anyone had used dr lai from mount sanai pediatric gastro

amother

Dimgray

Sat, Nov 11 2023, 7:47 pm

This thread actually reminded to speak to my child's gastro about a transnasal endoscopy. I was told that it's only done from age eight and up. My son is older but as of now is refusing . Mt Sinai has an EOE center however we did not have a good experience with Dr chehade who heads the center. I'm not sure what happens if you start with a different Dr and your child is diagnosed.

bnm

Sat, Nov 11 2023, 10:53 pm

Get it checked out. All my kids had an endoscopy to check for EOE- bad reflux combined with allergies and elevated eosiphinal counts.... one of them we combined it with tubes and adenoid removal but we had to wait extra till both drs have an availble date on their schedule.

There are different ways to manage EOE. Sometimes its totally controlled by meds, sometimes you need a complete diet change.