Then along came son #2. From the very beginning he couldn't eat rice cereal or have water from the tap. Doctor's thought I didn't know what I was talking about when I said he was a crabby baby the day after having unboiled water or that his skin was dry and flaky with the rice cereal, that only the oat cereal would work. They thought I was setting him up for an allergy. Then came all the ear infections. Our doctor's answer was long term low-dose antibiotics. 6 months worth. It was great for me, no more ear infections; we had been getting them every 6 weeks up until then. Then came the eczema, he was probably 3 or 4. At age five we decide to try an allergist and started Zyrtec and a topical steroid cream plus they wanted to do some blood work to test his allergens. That was my first exposure to their so called no-allergen diet. Boy was that a joke compared to where we are now. We did a blood draw that scared the living daylights out of him that to this day, he's petrified of shots. Try getting that one past him when we have well-child visits!
Blood work came back with only dust mites and grasses with a small skew on something else but nothing showed up on wheat, dairy, or eggs. After two weeks on their no-allergen diet we noticed he face cleared up. No more dry skin around his eyes. Wow! But we gave back all the offending foods because, hey the doc said it was all fine! So what could it be? So we ellimated all the stuff again and added back in one item at a time. It was dairy - or shall I say cows milk. But still the eczema was present.
He's 9 now and all these years I was the queen of pasta, red sauce, garlic, and anything containing bread or carbs. I'm a carb addict. More on that later.
A little over a year ago I was talking to a friend and she said she'd had her son tested for allergies without a blood test. I was very interested. VEGA testing using an electrode to see what the body likes or doesn't like. I looked all over the internet to learn more and see who in Portland might be able to help. I talked to ND's to see whom can help, many did not have the testing equipment but recommended one and said to call for an appointment once I had test results. But is was a matter on money. ND are not covered under our insurance. Well, we could get a ND that was supposed to give us discounts but it ended up being like $10 a session. So we decided to stay with the testing doc and see what she can do with the results. Today after over a year with a naturopath I'm struggling even more than ever.
Here's the list the machine said he couldn't have:
wheat
wheat gluten
all dairy except goat milk
refined table salt
refined white sugar
corn
garlic
honey
tomato
anything ending in the word "berry" except blackberry
no kiwi
no citrus - oranges, lemons, lime
no yeast when its mixed with a grain
no caffeine products - cocoa, decaf coffee, tea, carob
eggs
soy
Nutrasweet & saccharin
sulphites
red or green dye
MSG
The list seems to make you think, well what can he have. That's the reason for this blog. I'm trying to make my way from a packaged, processed, eating out mom to a healthy, something that fits in his menu and good for the whole family kind of cook. That's the true challenge.
She believes the months and months of antibiotics robbed his gut of healthy bacteria and probably contributes to leaky gut syndrome. ND's also believe the skin being the largest organ is trying to push out toxins and if we don't let it out, they body will find a way to manifest it and create some other way to get it out. It could manifest into asthma or some other chronic disease. That alone was enough for me to take all the offending foods out and stop the topical steroid; the steroid was suppressing the eczema.
So here we are today, almost 13+ months after the first visit and lots of money later. I'll keep you posted as we try new things and I find my way through what seems to be a next to impossible task. I know I should end up a better cook but hey, it all sometimes seems overwhelming.
No comments:
Post a Comment