The Dr squinted his eyes as he looked at the tiny red marks on my son's back. "He's allergic to this food right here" he said, then he looked down at his paper to see which food corresponded to the whelp forming around a small punture mark. That moment I scooted a little out to the edge of my seat and held my breath. It was kind of like that moment at the grammy's or the Emmy's or any other award's show when the presenter says "And the award for the most harmful food goes to.." and looks down to open the envelope and give the answer. That was the moment...but after many months of guessing I was about to have an answer to a question that had plagued me and made me doubt my abilities as a mother. A little over a year ago God answered our prayers and gave us a baby to add to our family...a boy. He cried more than our daughter ever did. We tried almost everything. Nursing or sitting outside were the only things that soothed him. We tried reflux medicine starting at 6 weeks. At 4 months he cried so much on a 3 hour road trip he had a rash from broken blood vessels on his back. Labor Day Weekend a play date for our daughter was cut short because he could not be consoled. We thought it was colic..maybe. I heard a friend talk about a gluten free diet while breastfeeding and though it seemed drastic I was desparate. Within a week of my diet change my son was more alert..happier. At his 6 month check up we discovered my milk supply was not enough and he was not growing like he should so we had to add formula. At 7 months he had his first round with bronchitis and breathing treatments. He was off the breathing treatments for a week before the cough came back. 3 weeks later he started vomiting...the vomiting last a week..I was exhausted and worried. Finally it stopped and after a week his appetite came back but so did the vomiting. I got a referral to a GI specialist who thought it was more what I was feeding him not the consistency of it. He said it sounded like an allergy problem...not celiac disease. So after another 3 days of vomiting we cleared the diet and started over. No wheat, no gluten, none. That was the diet. We had to be careful when we ate out. No fast food for him. Our diet improved as a result. Only fresh, no preservatives. We have had a few episodes of vomiting since our GI visit in January and other than one round of pneumonia he has done well. But the cough and the breathing treatments continue.
So, back to the allergist staring at his paper, waiting to know if I had been right, did I do the right thing..and he said "egg" Not wheat, egg. But the more I thought the more I realized that many foods with wheat have egg and unless I added egg to something he had not had much of it so maybe that's why the symptoms got better. I sat there dumbfounded as the Dr marked other allergies but none of them food. So he made a suggestion and asked what I wanted to do. I just stared at him. I wanted to scream "I've been making these decisions, guessing on the best thing for 9 months now! I want someone else to tell me what to do!" But I didn't I just smiled, nodded and said "sounds like a good plan" all the while thinking "egg?" So the plan is to get rid of egg for 3 weeks then reintroduce it...umm yeah that'll be fun week *eyeroll* And get rid of the cat for a months and see how the asthma does...so um anybody want a cat?
