Be careful what you wish for ...

My wish is for answers to this food allergy puzzle that we are currently experiencing. The answers are not easy to find, and the answers found are not easy. I asked our gastroenterologist if there was any mainstream medical expert interested in exploring these IgG allergies/food sensitivities and reactions, and the answer was, approximately, "not really." By the way, an interesting article that explains the difference between IgE and IgG food allergies can be found here.

And so we research, we explore alternative medical options, we pay for IgG testing that is of questionable repute in the medical community - all in the hopes of gaining more insight into our son's, and my own, health.

My test results are back, and they aren’t pretty. My most highly reactive foods are: all cow dairy, almonds, cashews, flaxseed, quinoa, and asparagus. These are the foods that I am to completely avoid. Almonds, flax and quinoa are all foods that I had added into my diet in the past few years to, ahem, improve my diet. Ha ha ha. My moderately reactive foods are: goat dairy, all glutens (wheat, spelt, kamut, rye), egg white and yolk, banana, peanut, chilli pepper, lima bean and navy bean. These are the foods that I am to include in a 4 day rotation diet. I eat bananas every day. I am addicted to bread and cereal. I love chilli. This is going to be a challenge, indeed. I am proceeding as though my results also reflect Lovey’s intolerances, so these are the foods that he will be avoiding/rotating, as well.

Tonight I feel frustrated. One of the hardest parts of this journey has been, in some but not all cases, the lack of support and understanding from loved ones and friends - some so well-meaning but having never experienced the allergy-free lifestyle (as we had not, not so long ago) and being unable to empathize, and others clearly and outright doubting there even is a problem - easy to do when Lovey is otherwise so healthy and developing well. It’s hard enough when you already feel crazy because of food allergies, never mind when other people start to suspect you’ve lost your mind, as well. No one makes this stuff up. It’s very real. No, neither I nor Lovey will have a life-threatening reaction to any of our unsafe foods, but what mother wouldn’t want to keep their child away from foods that interfere with his or her optimal health? If you knew what those foods were, wouldn’t you do the same? Even if it meant that, sometimes, you would feel left out, alienated, misunderstood, frustrated, angry, crazy, or alone?

The (Literal) Taste of Freedom

I'm back again to update about the food sensitivity/allergic colitis situation. I don't want to leave the story unfinished just in case another mom searching the internet and stumbling on this blog is looking for some info about this topic.

Overall, things are going great. Lovey is thriving and we have seen no new reactions in the past few months - except to infant Tylenol and Motrin, which we gave him several times to help him with his teething (poor thing!)

The past week and a half have been a bit of an experiment, and I have allowed myself to eat any foods that I wanted, including dairy and soy. The main reason for doing this was to prepare for an IgG allergy test (see here for the U.S. version). The test is a costly but worthwhile method of determining if I have any food sensitivities that are creating reactions in Lovey. This temporary eat-everything-I-want diet (including 2 Dairy Queen blizzards, an ice cream cone, pizza, Indian food, cheesy dips, soy milk) did indeed cause some symptoms in Lovey, but they were much milder than we expected (some mucous in his diapers and a bit of rash on his back and face) but no diaper rash, thank goodness! I firmly believe that the reactions were lessened by my use of digestive enzymes with each meal. I am also taking flax, fish oil, probiotics, a prenatal vitamin, vitamin D, and a high-potency B complex. Oh, and iron (ask me about our outrageous grocery/health food store bills!) We continue to give Lovey probiotics and vitamin D daily, and flax several times a week.

So now we wait for 2-3 weeks until we receive the results of the test. Until then, I am back to no dairy but I think I will keep soy (in small amounts) in my diet for the next week to see what happens. Unfortunately, Lovey is cutting molars and dealing with some kind of viral flu-ey type thing and not sleeping well at all, so I'd like to know how I'm supposed to track symptoms when so many things are happening at once! I really think that figuring out "what causes what", particularly when you throw the food sensitivities in the mix, is probably one of the most challenging parts of being a parent!

Lovey’s First Birthday!

Lovey is one year old! It is hard to believe he’s not my little baby anymore. Here we are, the parents of a walking (running), talking (sort of) toddler. Lovey, hubby and I have been through so much in the past year, wonderful moments and challenges, and we have all changed and grown.

We spent this weekend celebrating his birthday. On Sunday, we hosted a picnic party at a local park with over 30 guests. It was a lot of work, and I think I might have had fun though it flew by a bit too quickly and I barely had a moment to breathe. Lovey was in his element as the center of attention, and all of the guests seemed to enjoy themselves. While the strong winds were a bit of a nuisance for the adults, the kids were able to fly a kite. There was also a croquet match. The park was the perfect location for families as it has a children’s farm and play barn and playground. Some highlights about the party were:

We strived to make the party as waste-less as possible. We had bought tons of plates, bowls, plastic cups, and cutlery from the local reuse centre – large plates and bowls were 25 cents each, small plates were 10 cents, cutlery 15 cents, and bags of plastic cups were $2. We bought cloth tablecloths (or sheets and shower curtains to be used as same) and napkins. We put them all into large plastic bins, which, once emptied, were used to collect the dirty plates, etc. We brought our blue box for recyclables and our green bin for food waste. Most of the food was homemade so there was not a lot of packaging. As a group, we generated very little actual garbage at all. There was an initial investment, but now we have party supplies to last us for years.

My kitchen talents were yet again tested as I needed to find a cake recipe that did not contain any of Lovey’s allergens (dairy, soy, possibly wheat/gluten). So I found THIS recipe online and modified it (rice milk instead of soy milk, Enjoy Life Foods chocolate chips for one batch and blueberries for the other). It turned out surprisingly tasty and I got quite a few compliments on it. And I’m not complaining about the leftovers, either. Lovey didn’t actually eat any of the cake at the party, but enjoyed a piece at home later that evening.

All in all, it was a successful milestone celebration. I do wish that I had stopped to take more pictures, though.

I’m having the worst time figuring out good outdoor shoes for Lovey for this summer now that he is walking. Currently we use Isabooties and Simple shoes however the Isabooties are great for indoors but might not withstand a lot of pavement walking, and the Simple shoes will be too warm for hot summer days. I’m not totally anti-leather, but I do seek something with an extremely flexible sole (as is recommended by medical professionals for little feet) that is also non-toxic, ethical, and not too outrageously expensive. I know some moms are paying up to $50 for one pair of specially-fitted shoes, but considering how quickly these little feet grow I’m not sure I can justify that kind of cost - especially since he`ll be barefoot more than shoe-ed. Perhaps my findings will be shared in an upcoming post.

Cue tumbleweeds ...

Man, it's a ghost town around here. Someone should update this blog or something.

Really, I have the best of intentions. Mind you, I can see from my counter that I don't get too many visitors. Not sure how you get traffic to a little blog like mine. Not sure I have the time to figure it out. Not sure I really care all that much. Regardless, I started this blog and gosh darnit, I'm going to keep it. I do want to write more about Lovey, our life with him, and his allergy situation (and I did, about a month ago, a full page that just disappeared when I left the room - let's say I wasn't in a good mood after that). And it is a rare moment when I have the time to sit and think and type, when I am not chasing after my active and mobile son, doing household management-type stuff, or working on one project or another.

Lovey's walking now. Well, kind of running, actually. And he turns 1 on Saturday! We're having a party on Sunday. So, I promise (myself) that I will write an update within the next week.

The Big Psych Out and other new developments

Life is busy here in FnkyGreenMamaLand, and Lovey keeps me hopping. He also keeps me up at night for the past few nights, which is not typical for him, so I am a very, very, extremely tired mama tonight. The Big Psych Out is also keeping us on our toes ... this is each and every time Lovey, an excellent cruiser and crawler, stands holding onto one piece of furniture, person, or other item and reaches over to another item (or person) just so barely out of his grasp - reaches, reaches, considers the options and, for the briefest of moments, it looks like he’s going to do it (take.that.First.Step) but then he drops down and crawls! It is a breath-holding moment and it’s exciting. He has gotten up to standing on his own and he often lets go of supports and can stand for a good while, though he seems somehow unaware that he is doing so, and he certainly loves pushing around his walker-toy-thing all over the place (and can even steer it well now, too!). So it really is no surprise that he hasn’t taken a step on his own yet - he has no need to! But, we are certain that it is going to happen any time, now, so we keep the batteries charged and the camera and camcorder at the ready.

I have been wanting to type this out for the last few weeks but feeling so nervous to do so, but here goes - the diaper rash is gone. Yes, gone. After 6 months. We are back to using cloth diapers part-time (YAY!) and now I know what his bum is supposed to look like!!! The bad news is that he has developed a different rash on his back, arms and legs. Can you believe it? It`s almost laughable, isn`t it? We finally have all of these other things figured out and under control with the food sensitivities and the diaper rash, and something new pops up. Literally. We aren`t sure if this might be a reaction to a new food because, of course, I am now crazy mama who thinks that everything is related to food reactions, right? Right now, I`m just hoping it doesn`t spread or worsen.

I`ve decided that, so far, the hardest thing about parenting a baby is figuring out what is causing what. Like the past few sleepless nights, for example - was it teething, a missed nap, discomfort from the rash, food sensitivity-related, reflux or gas,

Did his diapers get better because his system finally cleared of the allergens or because mine did, because he has healed or I have, because his gut is maturing, because of the homeopathic remedy we gave him? I`m not naive to believe that there is always just one answer, but I sure wish that it was easier to narrow it down sometimes.