Daughter has had reoccurring stomach issues for years. 4 or so years ago we saw a gastro type pediatric doctor who immediately signed her up for an endoscopy, did it, said everything looked normal and prescribed her Hyoscyamine to take as needed and said have a good life.

Now she is a teenager and it is still a problem, probably made worse by puberty, teenage stress, horrible teenage diet habits, etc.

I am thinking there must be something more going on, even if the physical structure of the stomach esophagus and such is normal. Maybe a food allergy? Really hard to tell exactly what she means when she says her stomach hurts because she is so general in her description.

Any recommendations on the type or doctor to look for and maybe specific individuals in the North Dallas area? Want to help her, but not sure where to start. Her pediatrician and the gastro doc seemed to pretty much blow her off.

Drop all processed food. Just have her eat fresh meat, veggies, fruit, potatoes and rice. If it is a food issues, I'd go all natural sans gluten and see if it helps.

Easier said than done with a teenager.

Elimination diet and a food journal to start. Can't manage what you don't measure. Good luck!

I would be hesitant to make real advice based on what you posted in respect to her diet. I think a good place to start might be to find a good intergrative medicine doctor in you area.

You might have to ask around quite a bit because there are some quacks in that world, but there are also more holistic doctors who might be able to get to the bottom of this.

Definitely planning to do the journal thing. Obviously easier said than done on diet changes. Was thinking initially to try and get her just recording intake and how she feels, without insisting on big changes. Hoping to see some sort of pattern.

What is Intergrative medicine?

It is an area of medicine that is growing where the doctor takes many different angles for the conditions they might see. Diet is usually a big area they look at as well as comprehensive blood work. They aren't just focused on their speciality like GI and they tend to venture out into different causes.

There are some quacks out there for sure, but if you find the right one they can be really helpful. They usually don't take insurance so you have to keep that in mind. But they can be really good problems solvers at times because they have the time to really dig deep to what is going on.

Another question.

How are GI problems that are not structural found/diagnosed? Do you just go to a regular GI specialist and push for more testing? Can they do allergy testing for things like gluten and such?

Possibly anxiety

Food allergies can be difficult to diagnose. Skin testing or blood testing does not always correlate to a symptom that ingesting the food will give. Two weeks of complete elimination, followed by a challenge, is usually better. Dairy, eggs, wheat, etc. are good ones to start with. There are blood tests for gluten sensitivity, but intestinal biopsy has always been the gold standard. As noted by others, cleaning up a teenager's diet is often helpful but very difficult to accomplish. And to further complicate matters, emotions are often prominently related to GI symptoms.

Some (or quite a few) doctors fail to realize that there is more nuance to disease and the human body than what textbooks, labwork, and blood tests show. That peds GI was probably looking for evidence of inflammatory bowel disease, which can be seen typically while scoping. However it sounds like she gave the hyoscyamine thinking maybe your daughter had irritable bowel syndrome.

There aren't really any lab tests for IBS, that I'm aware of. It comes down to a lot of diet trial and error, and working on stress. A food diary is a great place to start, as is an elimination diet. There's something called a low fodmap diet, which is also good. If your daughter has IBS, symptoms are typically treated focusing on if she has predmoninantly constipation or diarrhea type. Constipation treated with psyllium husk fiber (old fashioned metamucil). And diarrhea type treated with imodium, and maybe fiber (acts as a bulking agent).

There's lots of online forums and stuff where people have tried different things. Lots of anecdotes out there. Some have done the carnivore diet, others have gone the opposite and stuck to lots of fruits and whole grains.

This is all assuming IBS. But a good pediatrician or peds GI would still be the best route to take, while you work on diet. Finding one is easier said than done. There isn't a treatment/cure for everything. So you may have to tell your daughter she's going to have to learn and put for the effort to manage her symptoms or deal with it.

Thanks for the responses. Very helpful.

I also tend to think that anxiety is playing a large role here. I can see more correlation to stress with the stomach pain days than particular foods. But I go back and forth in that opinion.

Worse symptoms with anxiety/stress and relief of pain following a bowel movement is pretty classic IBS.

She never reports any issues with the bowel movement side of things.