GI Conditions Treated at PSV

• Abdominal pain: A child’s intestine has a complicated system of nerves and muscles that helps move food forward and carry out digestion. In some children, the nerves become very sensitive, and pain is experienced even during normal intestinal functions. The pain can be triggered by illness, stress, constipation, or other factors.
• Biliary atresia: A rare disease of the liver and bile ducts that occurs in infants, where bile flow from the liver to the gallbladder is blocked, causing the bile to be trapped in the liver. This causes damage to liver cells (cirrhosis), and can eventually lead to liver failure.
• Celiac disease: A lifelong genetic autoimmune disorder that affects both children and adults, in which consuming gluten, the protein in wheat, barley, rye, and oats, causes damage to the lining of the small intestine, interfering with nutrient absorption.
• Colic: A common condition in babies causing inconsolable crying and extreme fussiness. Typically colic starts by 3 weeks of age, lasts at least 3 hours a day, and occurs at least 3 days a week. These babies cry as if they are in pain, turning red and arching their back. Though there is no certain treatment, some approaches can minimize the impacts of this problem on parents.
• Constipation: A decrease in the frequency of bowel movements or the painful passage of bowel movements. Constipation can be organic or functional, and occurs for many reasons, including neurological, medical, and dietary.
• Encopresis: Occurs when the child’s colon is impacted with hard stool and the soft or liquid stool can leak out of the anus and stains the child’s clothing. This is usually caused by chronic constipation. Less frequently, it may be a result of developmental or emotional stress.
• Diarrhea (Acute and chronic): An increase in the number of stools per day and/or more loose or liquid stools.
• Failure to Thrive (FTT): Describes children who have fallen short of their expected growth and development. FTT occurs when your child is either not receiving adequate calories or is unable to properly use the calories that are given, resulting in failure to grow or gain weight over a period of time. The causes can be divided into three categories: poor intake, poor utilization, or increased calorie requirements.
• Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE): An inflammatory condition in which the wall of the esophagus becomes filled with large numbers of white blood cells called eosinophils. Because this condition inflames the esophagus, someone with EoE may experience difficulty swallowing, pain, nausea, regurgitation, and vomiting. Over time, the disease can cause the esophagus to narrow, which sometimes results in food becoming stuck, or impacted, within the esophagus
• Hepatitis (A, B, C, and autoimmune): Any inflammation of the liver that can result in liver damage. Hepatitis can have many causes, including viruses and autoimmune disorders.
• Hirschsprung disease: Children with Hirschsprung disease are born without ganglion cells in the colon. In most cases, only the rectum is affected, but in some cases more of the colon, and even the entire colon, may be affected. Without these ganglion cells, the muscles in that part of the colon cannot push the stool out, which then builds up causing constipation and difficulty passing stool.
• Inflammatory bowel disease (Ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease): children can have diarrhea, rectal bleeding, urgency with bowel movements, abdominal pain, sensation of incomplete evacuation, constipation. In addition, they may also have fever, loss of appetite, weight loss, fatigue, night sweats, joint pains and body aches. IBD is marked by an abnormal response by the body’s immune system, which causes harm to the gastrointestinal tract.
• Irritable bowel syndrome and other functional bowel diseases:
• Nutrition and obesity: Childhood obesity can in turn be a precursor to many health problems, from Type II diabetes to heart disease to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). It is essential to provide your child proper nutrition and help him or her establish good eating habits that will last an entire lifetime.
• Pancreatitis: An inflammation, or swelling, of the pancreas. Causes of pancreatitis include gallstones and toxins such as excessive alcohol. In children, common causes include viruses and other infections, medications, congenital malformations and other inherited conditions, and trauma to the abdomen.
• Reflux and gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD): Reflux is very common and seen most often as spitting up in babies, and burping, stomachaches, and heartburn in older children. When reflux happens frequently and severely it can develop into GERD, which leads to failure to gain weight, bleeding, respiratory problems or esophagitis.