Bippity, Boppity, Boo

I feel as if someone waved a magic wand over my house and said these magic words, "Bippity Boppity Boo!" and just like that relief washed over my kids like a wave.  

As most of you know that my youngest son, 3 of 3, broke out in hives from the day he was introduced to solid food.  This happened almost every time he ate.  As more foods were introduced, more hives appeared.  He also had almost constant ear infections for 6 months.  

I was tired, stressed and in need of answers.  Monthly trips to the doctor are NOT my idea of fun.  I couldn't find any answers other than antibiotics.   And really they weren't working either.   

Out of desperation I removed dairy from 3 of 3's diet and NO more ear infections.  Cured completely with the removal of dairy.  Hey THAT is the kind of help I needed.   And it started changing my thinking.

I turned to a natural doctor for help with the hives.  I knew it was caused by something he was eating.  It seemed EVERYTHING he was eating.  

We started with a simple blood test.  Come to find out my littlest person had a mild gluten allergy.  That was the only allergen that showed up in the blood test results.  And the gluten allergy was so mild it wouldn't even have been considered an allergy by conventional doctors. 

Thinking back, one of the first foods I introduced was oatmeal cereal with dairy based formula.  Gluten and dairy.  And at some point every day he had some form of gluten. Had I found the answer, could it be? 

Now 3 of 3's diet is free of dairy and gluten.  Just think of how many foods in your daily diet contain some form of these ingredients.  Challenging diet but doable.

The hives continued sporadically and my little person seemed much better but still not quite himself.

I took the rest of the family in to get the blood test done.  Again, no major allergies for any of us.  I did find a common mild allergy between a few family members and decided to experiment and take this out of 3 of 3's diet too.

It worked!  No more hives and a REALLY smiling, happy, playful child.  

The culprit...eggs.

So the egg free, dairy free, gluten free diet is the diet of this house.  And it's actually been quite easy to achieve.  I can't wait to share the fabulous finds that we have found so far.

The Waiting Game

My oldest child, 1 of 3, turned 6 this summer and she has been waiting to have a sleep over.  I used the old carrot and stick trick, you get the sleep over after you have a dry pull up for 3 days.  We tried everything.  I cut off the water consumption a few hours before bed.  I got her up around midnight and set her on the potty.  To no avail.  The pull up was always wet.  We were both SUPER DUPER frustrated.

Then I had the idea to just let her sleep in panties.  She would realize the feeling after a few nights.  Nope.  No way.  It just caused more work for me.  I resigned myself to the idea that it would just be a long process.  No big deal.

When her 3 year old sister started waking up dry in the morning and asking to sleep in panties, it became a bigger deal.

I mentioned this problem to her doctor and he said that he could prescribe some medicine to help stop the night time wetting if we wanted to do so.  I declined as I did not think it necessary to medicate her for THAT problem.  We would just put off sleep overs for awhile.

After getting the food allergy results for my youngest, 3 of 3, I began to do a bit of research.  I read somewhere that food allergies can cause night time bed wetting.  Really?  That sounded like a bunch of hogwash to me but both my daughter and I were a bit desperate.

I had been thinking about the family getting the test anyway so off we went.

We finally got the test results and found out that she was mildly allergic to wheat/gluten, eggs and peanuts.  She had a few other mild allergies but the mentioned allergies were IgE reactions.  Simply put, her body has a response to these foods from the very first time of exposure.  And the gluten response, albeit mild, could be causing an autoimmune response in her body.  We don't exactly know.

So I immediately cut gluten from her diet.  It was just AMAZING.  The child has never had another night time bed wetting episode.  Ever.  For 6 weeks she has been able to drink as much as she wants before bed.  No more waking her up in the middle of the night.  No more sad little face wondering why she can't seem to stop.  Just a PROUD little face thrilled to finally feel like the big girl she is.

It seems like a small thing but the gluten or SOMETHING was interfering with the hormone process in her body.  It just makes me wonder what other small ways the gluten had begun to interfere with in her body.  And what would have happened over the long haul if it hadn't been removed.

I feel so thankful that 1 of 3 found relief and an answer so quickly.  We are all off of gluten and I can report that I feel much more energetic as well.  More to come.

So the waiting game is over and I should get to planning that sleep over!  By the way, I had permission from my daughter to share this story.  She said that she hopes it might help someone.

Without a Little Bit of Heaven

This past summer has turned my food world upside down.  Circumstances have dictated that I learn to live without a little bit of heaven.  So I have taken a few months off to rethink everything I have ever thought about diet and nutrition.

For the next few posts I will discuss the dietary changes we have undergone this summer.  It has been challenging but more rewarding that I could have imagined!  I am not saying that you should remove these same foods from you diet, I am just highlighting the fact that conventional physicians want to throw medicine at every ailment.  This simply alleviates the symptom but never addresses the cause. Most doctors take few if any nutrition class and are not trained to look at the diet for answers to health issues. That is exactly where I believe the search for the cure begins.  The DIET is the key.

With the help of a Naturopathic Doctor, Terri Beim, our family underwent blood tests for food allergies.  We had the mildest of mild allergies.  But the removal of these mild allergens have yielded BIG results.

My challenge: finding foods that would be accepted by the family and still meet our diet restrictions. Thank GOD we live in Austin, TX.  It is one of the most friendly "without" cities in America.  I'll highlight some of our favorite foods along the way too.

I'll tell you about more results that we have seen on this diet in the next few days.  On two occasions things that the doctors wanted to medicate my children for were completely alleviated upon the removal of the MILD allergen.  Wondering why I didn't know about this test 6 years ago when my first child was born.  It has changed our lives in the few short months.

I will admit, when I first realized everything that needed to be removed from our diet I was overwhelmed and upset.  I wanted to journal my thoughts and emotions but I just couldn't make myself sit down and face it.  How can we all live without a little bit of heaven?

It's possible to live and LOVE living without the little bit of heaven.  I think that we would all agree we've found a whole lot more life by removing it!