It gets worse before it gets better?

I've been holding off taking pictures of Keegan at 1 year off topical steroids, because his skin looks really bad right now... I do need to document though, I keep telling myself. I WILL take those pictures.

We've been struggling with a bloated tummy, which basically started a year ago, when we drastically changed up Keegan's diet, and took him off topical steroids. First we tried the GAPS diet, then we tried an anti-candida diet, low fodmaps, no sugar, paleo, no cruciferous veggies, no grains, parasite cleansing, herbs, enzymes, probiotics, magnesium drinks, hydrotherapy, enemas, caster oil packs, tummy massage, it's been crazy what we've tried. He "goes" to the bathroom on a daily, regular basis, so he's not backed up either.... Nothing has worked to ease his belly from being hard and distended.

So, we've decided to take this issue back to the doctor... we took Keegan to a pediatric GI specialist last week, and long story short, doc wants to do a colonoscopy and endoscopy on him.

A couple things that bugged me about this doctor (although doctors only "know" as much as they were trained...)
1. He basically said we wasted our $ on IGG blood allergy testing - according to him it doesn't mean anything since IGG antibodies react to ALL foods.
2. He said the stool test we had done was useless because a "4" on a scale from 1-4 on candida overgrowth doesn't mean anything either. Everyone has candida to different levels, and he doesn't understand why these "natural" doctors want to blame candida overgrowth on a lot of issues people have.
3. He doesn't believe in topical steroid addiction - he says that they don't absorb enough into the skin to create problems internally. (I guess he doesn't know that steroids on the face have a 7% absorption rate, eyelids 30%, armpits 4%, genitals 30%, most everywhere else 1%). Over time of application, the amount these drugs get absorbed is crazy... Also, if bacteria can enter the bloodstream through a cut or sore and create chaos in your body, then why wouldn't a potent drug be able to do the same??

We will go through with the procedures, because we want to make sure there isn't anything we are missing. And if they do find something, it could help us work that much harder toward Keegan's end goal of complete health.
Doc said that it could be a few things... bacteria overgrown on the digestive tract, an "allergic" digestive tract (like people have allergy of the lungs or allergy of the skin - he could have allergy of the gut), or it could be a  malabsorption disorder or some sort. Doc also mention SIBO (small intestinal bacteria overgrowth), which he said there's a test for (breath test) but Keegan is too young to do the test on as we wouldn't get accurate results. Antibiotics would be the treatment for that, so we'd just have to assume he has it and treat for it. We are not going that route yet...

Doc wants to test for celiac disease while he's in there, and he can only test if Keegan has gluten in his system - at least a cracker every day for 2 weeks. He hasn't eaten gluten in over a year. 4 days in a row of eating gluten, and his eczema is as bad as it was back in May - 2 months off topical steroids. Not good. So... we decided to screw testing for celiac. We want to focus on healing Keegan NOW. If he ever wants to eat gluten in the future with HEALTHY skin, we will deal with it at that point.

We recently saw an article for the 5 foods to avoid for eczema. Gluten, Dairy, Eggs, Corn, and Nightshades.
We already do 100% no dairy and eggs, and gluten except for those 4 days. We just recently have been feeding him corn and some nightshades (tomatoes, bell peppers and white potatoes). Well since seeing this article, we are going to be strict again. We have GOT to get his skin back under control... bye bye french fries, tater tots, corn chips, and tomato sauce! Until next time. ;)