As Promised, a Real Post November 24, 2008
I guess since my last post was my barley plea, I might as well expound on the whole food allergy subject. I know several of you have asked about it in the past.
Things aren’t going so well in that department. We haven’t had a new food success in 7 months. Adam just keeps reacting to everything we try. I’ve lost a bunch more out of my diet, too. What I’m eating now is pretty depressing. Wanna know?
I eat an apple for breakfast and another one for an afternoon snack. For lunch and dinner I have salmon on a salad of lettuce, cucumber, and carrots with my one safe canola oil based dressing. After meals and throughout the day I snack on dry corn cereal. That’s it. That’s what I eat every day. See, I told ya it was kinda depressing.
Some days are hard. I have every motivation in the world to keep this diet up, though, because Adam still depends on breastmilk for so much of his diet. Barley cereal and applesauce can only get him so far.
I don’t know if I’ve ever really explained what’s going on with Adam from a technical standpoint. An IgE-mediated allergy is what people typically think of when you say allergy. It’s the kind that shows up on blood tests. That’s not what Adam has. His blood work all came back fine.
Adam is plagued by cell mediated intolerances. Technically an intolerance is something that does not involve the immune system, like lactose intolerance where the gut lacks an enzyme needed to digest milk sugar. However, “intolerance” can also be used to describe non-IgE-mediated allergies where the immune system is involved but IgE is not involved. They’re mediated by other mechanisms. That’s what Adam has.
So, what happens when Adam eats a food that his body cannot tolerate? Well, he turns into a completely different kid. His sleep goes to crap, with him waking up every 45-90 minutes all night long. He can’t even sleep through a nap without me having to go in and nurse him back to sleep. The eczema on his cheeks flares. He goes beyond fussy and starts operating in meltdown mode. He bites because he feels badly. His poop gets disgusting. (I’ll spare you the details on that one.) And when things get bad he starts refusing to eat. He’s basically a miserable little man.
It’s hard to see him like that. I hate that food, something that we should all be able to enjoy, does that to him.
So, will he grow out of this crap at some point? We sure hope so. We thought he might have started that process by now, but no such luck. Only time will tell at this point.
I worry about what would happen with Adam if something should happen to me. We’ve been trying to find an elemental formula that Adam can tolerate so that in addition to having an additional protein source, we would have something in our back pockets in case something should happen where I can’t breastfeed him. So far, though, we haven’t found one that his little system can handle.
So, that about sums things up. The hardest thing by far about parenting Adam is dealing with these damn food allergies. They’re all encompassing, and we can’t seem to catch a break. Sometimes I just don’t know what we’re going to do. All we can do, though, is keep on keeping on. We’re doing the best we can, and that’s all we can do.
I’m just so thankful that despite all of this stuff that Adam is a happy kid. His body puts him though so much, but you can still find him smiling and being goofy with the best of them. See?
A Plea to my Canadian Friends November 20, 2008
UPDATE: I found a company in Canada that has the barley cereal in stock and can ship it to me here in TX. Thank you so much to my two Canadian friends who offered to help. You guys rock!
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I know that a real post is long overdue, but we’re in a bit of a bind right now so I’m going to have to write a begging post instead. I promise to come back with a real post soon.
Things in the food allergy department are not going well. As I’ve written about before, in addition to breastmilk, Adam can only tolerate barley cereal and applesauce. (We lost turkey a while back.) You can imagine how much of those two things we go through around here.
Well, the problem is that Healthy Times, the company that makes the only barley baby cereal that contains no soy, dairy, or wheat, is out of stock. I found this out a couple of weeks ago after I had placed a new order. They did manage to find a couple of boxes to send me to tie me over, but I just found out that the new shipment will not be in for another 2 weeks, and we’re almost out.
The thing that complicates matters is that you cannot by Healthy Times barley cereal in stores in the US. You have to order it directly from them. No one else even in internet land carries it.
So, where does Canada come into play here? Well, you can buy it in stores there. So, I was wondering if anyone who reads my blog in Canada might have a couple of boxes that they could send my way, or have a way to get a couple. I wouldn’t ask this of anyone if we weren’t desperate. It’s hard having a child who can only eat a couple of things, and it’s even harder when you can’t just run out and buy one of those things.
I know this is a long shot, but if anyone is willing to do this I will more than gladly reimburse the cost of cereal, shipping, and for your time and effort. Just leave me a comment or send me an email (the address is over there in the sidebar.)
And now a picture to hold ya over into I can come back and post a real update.
