What Causes Chronic Abdominal Pain While On Pentasa?

Posted on Sat, 23 Jan 2016

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Sat, 23 Jan 2016 Answered on

Fri, 4 Mar 2016 Last reviewed on

Question : I have a 7 yr old daughter who has chronic abdominal pain. It wakes her up at night and is worse after eating. She has been diagnosed with GERD and eosinophilia in the esophagus and in small bowel. She is on 1000mg of pentasa but still deals with a lot of pain. Every 8-12 weeks the pain is severe and causes vomiting and she won't eat. What can I do to help her? Her current Dr says she shouldn't have that kind of pain with her diseas but can't find any other problems. She has always had difficulty keeping a healthy weight since birth and has had pain after eating since birth. I'm desperate to find something to help her.

Answered by Dr. Diptanshu Das (3 hours later)

Brief Answer:
There could be some problem with metabolic processes

Detailed Answer:
Thanks for asking on HealthcareMagic.

I have gone very carefully through your query. I understand that you want to do something or the other to help her out. But her condition needs a proper diagnosis first. This has to be approached in a step by step manner. I would insist you to get the following done:
* Blood tests for gluten autoantibodies (These are IgA based tests accurate only while on a gluten-containing diet). These include EMA - anti-endomysial, TTG - anti-tissue transglutaminase and DGP - Deamidated Gliadin Peptide.

Based on the reports a small bowel biopsy to assess gut damage might be necessary.

In the meantime try avoiding wheat based and related products and see if it provides relief.

Regards

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar