Question: My son is 25 & for the past 3 years experiences severe abdominal pain on the left side & sensitive to touch. He cant sleep, has no energy, always complaining of his side hurting. He has at times loose blood separated from stool, very painful going to the bathroom to the point of crying. Over the last year developed itchy red rashes nearly every day after showering with no change in shower products. He gets headaches, has extreme anxiety & is extremely irritable. Irritability has been going on for years. Diagnosed in early teens as ADD, had severe reaction to milk products as a baby (I put him on soy), though he doesn't complain of lactose intolerance now). and remained in hospital when born in an incubator for severe jaundice. He had an upper & lower GI, diagnosed with GERD (always complained of heartburn), and from what i can remember of the test results (they were never explained to us, as the physician was very disgruntled by the my sons revealing he smokes marijuana on a regular basis (he has a medical certificate to do so), and simply stated he was a drug addict. Son says it helps with pain & anxiety (not sure I buy into this but I do know he has been in chronic pain for nearly 3 years). I believe the tests also showed intestinal inflammation & some narrowing, possibly some ulcers. A few days ago i came across information on celiac's disease & intolerance to gluten. My research shows many similarities to this disease. His family history is strong in gastrointestinal diagnosis, that include food allergies, IBS, Chrons disease, GERD, pre-cancerous esophagus conditions, chronic stomach issues, hital hernia repair, chronic fatigue. In your opinion, could his symptoms warrant further investigation of celiacs disease or gluten intolerance? I asked him to start keeping a diary of how he felt compared to what he ears. As a young adult with a limited income (and no health insurance - I usually have to pay out of pocket to help but so many doctors & no diagnoses is very expensive), he eats a lot of food with gluten such as pasta, cereal, bread, fast food.....beer. He said he had eaten a lot of pasta recently and experience increased pain during that period of time. Am I barking up the wrong tree? I hate to see him in so much pain & at times his irritability is too much to handle to the point of wanting to avoid conversation - I just want to help get this figured out so he can get on with his life.

Thank you,
XXXXXXX