10 year-old with blood in stool and stomach pain.

[John__0__0]

  My son has had red blood in his stool for 20 months now.  He has undergone several tests performed at a children's hospital including a colonoscopy, meckel's scan, small bowel follow-thru/upper gi as well as as blood tests, and tests on his stool.  The colonoscopy and the upper gi turned up nothing but the meckel's scan showed area of activity in upper left quadrant-behind the stomach --although the test did exclude a meckels diverticulum.  His pain is at the mid to upper left side of his abdomen.   About every 6 weeks, he has blood in his stool for 3-5 bowel movements usually.  He normally has a bowel movement every 2-3 days.  He is not anemic although he complains of not having enough energy.  He is not losing weight and he above 95% in height/weight.  There is no colitis in the family history.  He has been diagnosed with allergy induced asthma but  he hasn't needed an inhaler for over a year now.  We put a hepa filter in his room and infrequently he will take prescribed antihistamines--this seems to take care of the problem.  He has had allergy testing and he has airborne allergies(mold, pollen, and dust)--no food allergies.  Though his pain is more severe when he eats fatty foods such as steak, hamburgers, french fries, pizza etc so we really limit these things.  
  No conclusive diagnosis has been made as of yet.  It was at first  diagnosed as irritable bowel  but is now suspected to be AVM.  My question is how long does this bleeding usually last?  Over the last few weeks, the bm's have changed to include diarhea (diarrhea) and constipation.  He has had lots of gas.  What can I do to help him when he has this pain?  I have been told that we need to just wait...that this will eventually go away or wait until he "bleeds out" and then do a arteriogram to pinpoint the source.
   Has anyone done a follow-up on the children who have had this problem in the past(I was wondering if this will eventually go away for good).
    
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Dear John,
The GI Forum no longer has the services of a pediatric gastroenterologist.  You may gain additional information if you repost your question to the Maternal-Child Forum.
Arteriovenous malformations are abnormal blood vessels.  In adults, they are usually very superficial and tend to bleed intermittently.  The amount of blood lost at any episode is small but there can be a cumulative loss that leads to anemia.  The frequency of bleeding can not be predicted.  Again, a more detailed response should come from the pediatricians.
Best of luck.
HFHSM.D.-rf
*keywords: arteriovenous malformation, bleeding
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