Another Food Bites the Dust

It's been over a month since our last food induced reaction. Just a few more days and we would have made it January-free! We were almost there. Almost.

I decided that the next new food we tried would be cauliflower. W had done so well eating broccoli and they seemed so similar that I thought it would be a home run. Plus, I had gotten inspired by all the different ways that people were using this amazing vegetable lately. As a substitute for potatoes, a creamy sauce base and even pizza dough. Cauliflower seemed like a miracle food for a kid with wheat and dairy allergies.

Cauliflower Pizza from The Lucky Penny Blog

See, doesn't this look yummy? (Thanks Cat!)

For Tuesday's lunch I made a creamy cauliflower purée, which unfortunately only stayed in poor W's belly for a few minutes. Flu? Virus? Allergy?

W had been sick the whole of last week with a stomach bug and hadn't held down much food during this time. So when lunch went the way of Vesuvius I immediately thought he might be sick again. I called in "the Reserves" to be in standby since W couldn't go to daycare until he was 24 hours free of throwing up, switched from formula to pedialyte and only fed W the most basic of food (BRAT-esque). 

But no fever or other symptoms caused doubt to creep in. Was it an allergic reaction? 

We got the answer on Wednesday after the second serving of cauliflower when I noticed W scratching his head furiously. Yep, telltale sign número uno: cradle cap. A few minutes later and I noticed a hive on his hand. When I removed his shirt I discovered a back covered in hives.

So the silver lining is that W got a day off from daycare, even though he wasn't sick, and his Grams got to cuddle with him. Of course we still need to confirm with our allergist, but for now have another answer and the scales tip just a bit in favor of the allergies.

AllerMates on Zulily!

If you know me, you know that I have a problem with shopping. Throw in that I am home with three kids all day while the freeze of the century takes over Texas, shutting everything down (sarcastic voice), and those online discount shopping sites just call to me.

However, today was different as for the first time in forever (too much Frozen soundtrack playing in our house) there is something online that I have been looking for! Zulily, that wonderful "daily deals for moms" website, has AllerMates.  AllerMates is a line of products aimed at helping alert people to a little ones allergies.  They have wristbands, snack holders, lunch boxes, dog tags and more!

I have been searching for a bag that can hold our Epi Pens plus other medications, and I found it.  Isn't it cute! And the color will make it so much easier to find it fast in my black hole of a purse.

Check out their stock on here on Zulily! Sale ends Friday!

A Simple RSVP

For most people who get invited to a family function or party, an RSVP is as easy as checking your calendar and hitting the reply button.

For a family where one of your children has food and/or environmental allergies, it is never that easy.

• What kind of food will they be serving?
• Do they have pets?
• How well do we know them and can we ask them to make accommodations?

I quickly realized as this past Holiday Season approached that this would be a bigger issue than I had accounted for. 

Our family's annual Domino Derby was in November. I nervously emailed a cousin asking if she would spread the word about not allowing eggs or peanuts or to be served (those are his only two airborne/contact allergies as of now.) Thankfully, everyone was understanding and left the peanut butter cookies and such at home. 

When Christmas rolled around, however, we had a new concern.  At that same family function in November, W had been around dogs.  We knew he was allergic to dogs, but (per our allergist instructions) had given him extra medicine and thought it would take care of that problem. It didn't, and that evening W had breathing problems and had to be given an asthma treatment.

Thanksgiving came and I had to send another email to family asking not only for the food to be allergy friendly, but also that the family dogs be put away. 

And so on, and so on.

There have been times when asking for our necessary accommodations was not an option because I can't expect everyone else to bend to my one child, especially when they are not close friends and family. We have missed events, and my husband and I have made decisions to split up (one of us staying with W) so that our older two can still enjoy these experiences.

We had even decided to attend an upcoming event as a whole family without asking for accommodations (taking precautions of course). I was a bit nervous by this prospect, as I would be very happy just wrapping my sweet W in a bubble for at least a little while longer, but thankfully for us, this dear friend reads my blog posts and contacted us!

First key to dealing with food allergies: A good circle of friends!

Where are all the babies with allergies?

I know that there have to be more mothers out there who have babies with allergies. According to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology a study from "2009-2010 of 38,480 children (infant to 18) indicated that 8% have a food allergy and approximately 6% aged 0-2 years have a food allergy." (Click here for full statistic report)

I am at what is likely the beginning of my journey, and as such I spend countless hours each week trying to soak up all the information that I can to help educate myself and equip me to become an advocate for my child. I still hope that W will grow out of many of his allergies, but until that time I want to be prepared.

The problem that I run into is that those with the experience to share seem to focus their information on topics that are certainly relevant but years into my future.

So much is said about empowering our children to speak up about their allergies, but mine can't even tell me that he is hungry?

I have read several articles on getting children a 504 plan in place for safety at school, but again that is at least 4 years into my future, and right now I have to worry about what my child will eat at daycare.

There are issues to dealing with a babies with allergies such as the possibility of developing oral aversion or weight problems. I want to find these stories.  It helps to see so many stories of older children with allergy problems because I know that at one time they too were babies and "look at them now," but I also want to know how they made it through those first years. How the day to day was before it became routine.

Please share any suggestions, links, etc. that could not only help my family but also others that may be taking their first steps into this journey as well. And thank you!

The Non-Food Allergies, Part 2 - A Boy and His Robotic Dog

The last (hopefully) non-food allergy that we have discovered is unfortunately dogs. Our allergist tested him after he ended up with swollen eyes from cuddling with a dear friend that has a dog.  My hubby has developed a dog allergy over the last 10 years, so there was not much chance of us getting a dogie the first place, but this certainly cemented it. 

It was just a few weeks after this diagnosis that we got a first hand look at how he would react to being around dogs (not just someone who owns them.) We were attending a party where there were dogs running loose.  Before going, W received his double dose of medication as prescribed for this exact situation and he actually did well at the party.

It was when we got home that we started to hear him whistle every time he took a breath.  Just like his daddy, W has an asthmatic response to his four-legged friends.  So now we carry our asthma inhaler around with our Epi Pen and take extra precautions when visiting friends and family with pets.

This Christmas we did receive a wonderful gift for our kids from the Big Guy in Red. A robotic dog named Zoomer joined the family.  He sits, shakes, rolls over, plays dead, and to the shear enjoyment of my oldest son, will lift his leg to pee!  W loves watching Zoomer roll around the house and just like a real dog, likes to pick him up by his tale.

The best part about our new robotic friend? Mommy doesn't have to feed it, walk it, bath it, or even pet it! Perfect.

The Non-food Allergies, Part 1 - Telltale Skin

In hindsight I look back and see that all of my questions and W's issues started at about 3 weeks old when the trifecta of infant skin issues arose: cradle cap, baby acne, and atopic dermatitis (actually all eczema).  Special shampoos, creams, lotions, they all either did very little or made it worse. There were times that his skin got so bad that a yellowish liquid would ooze from his face or plaster his hair to the side of his head.  Every mother wants to show off their new baby, but there were days when I didn't want anyone to see him. 

Visits to the pediatrician and even a specialized pediatric dermatologist did little to help, and as I found myself smearing more and more steroid cream on my child to no avail I became increasingly frustrated.  I spent money left and right on lotions, soaps, and creams and tried every natural remedy I could find.  (One time I slathered him in olive oil for about 30 minutes and ended up with no more than a baby that smelled like a roasting chicken!) Our nightly routine of bath and skin treatment took about 45 minutes at the height of his problems. When we discovered the egg allergy I will admit that we saw some relief to his skin problems, but not all.

When W was 5 months old we took a trip to Mexico for my brothers wedding.

W with his Great-Aunt in Mexico

While we were there, his skin was perfect.  The kind you want to rub your cheek against and snuggle with. Was it the humidity or the steady stream of tortilla chips in my diet? We joked that our Garcia baby just did better in his native tropics.  Either way, we all enjoyed the break from long and monotonous routine, not to mention knowing that my little man wasn't constantly itching.

A week later we arrived home and back to reality, literally.  It took 30 minutes in our house for the red patches to inflame and the itching to begin. We made an appointment with our allergist and went in with a few food related ideas and one furry, four-legged one.

W's poor rash 30 minutes after arriving home from Mexico.

Unfortunately it turned out that our sweet boy was allergic to our long-time pet kitty, Francesca.  We were lucky to have close family that offered her a home so that my older two children could still see their pet.  So off went the kitty and we got to work on ridding our home of 10 years of Persian cat fur (really fun!)

With the departure of kitty, W's skin did start to get much better, and my older two kiddos were made happy again by the adoption of our new pet fish.  I did still notice, however, that W's skin was always problematic at the end of a day at daycare.  They had switched detergents for us already so I was at a loss.

In talking to a friend about allergies one afternoon, she mentioned that some food allergies can cross react to latex.  Our caregivers use latex gloves daily to change diapers so I looked into this further.  And two of the highest cross reactive foods to latex? Bananas and avocados, both of which W is allergic.  So latex got added to the list and we now provide non-latex gloves to our daycare for them to use with W. 

His skin is now just as a babies should be, smooth and soft and beautiful.  He still gets flare ups of eczema here and there as he come into contact with an allergen, but I am actually thankful that I can now use it is as sign of reaction.

A side note to anyone with children who have latex allergies:  Sophie the Giraffe, the popular teething toy, is made from latex.  Research any soft plastic toy to ensure its safety. 

Our little allergy joke

Why is it that W is allergic to some many foods?

Because apparently he is part vampire. Check out those teeth!

Bring on the steaks and make W's rare.

Why bananas?

What does he eat?

That questions is so often posed to me.  There are things that W can eat, but for a while that list was frustratingly smaller than the list of things that he couldn't. 

With his sister, I made all of her food.  Of course I was a stay at home mom then and had a bit more time on my hands than I do now with a job and three children.  I did start out trying to make all of W's food. The inevitable problem wasn't the time involved.  Yes, it took time to prep the food, cook the food, puree the food (you get it)....To have made a whole weeks worth of food, let's say carrots, and to see that first serving come right back up, it seemed like an exercise in futility.  So I tested each new food through store bought pouches and once deemed "safe" would make it at home.

Eventually, time got the better of me and I began to buy much more store bought foods.  It was easy. Then you move past the "one ingredient" foods and it starts to get a little complicated.  "Try blueberries next," suggested our allergist, who for two months decided our next foods.  I went to the store and started looking through the choices.  Blueberries with bananas (OUT - banana allergy), Blueberries with pumpkin and Sweet Potato (OUT - Sweet potato and Pumpkin allergy), Blueberries with apples (YES?) and Purple Carrots (OUT- Carrot allergy).

It seemed like every place I looked there was a combination that included one of our allergens. The most popular base ingredients are carrots, sweet potatoes and bananas (all three on his allergy list). So back to making baby food we went.  There have been some interesting experiments and some times when our daycare teachers would balk at my attempts for variety; spinach and strawberries sounds good as a salad, but is not very pretty when you feed it to a baby.

I now have a pretty fair grasp of what we can and cannot get as far a store bought baby food goes, but there are always those time when I get excited about something new, revert back to my careless self, only to get home and realize that the pouch of blueberry oatmeal that I just bought has a unknown primary ingredient...

BANANAS!

Blow the candle out on....the strawberry?

As W's 1st birthday approached, the question of the cake loomed largely on my mind.  How does anyone make a cake that is free of dairy, eggs, flour, and everything else on his list.  Several friends and family members suggested an array of Vegan and Gluten friendly bakers (thank you all).  One person mentioned a lady in my own neighborhood who started an in-home bakery after her own son suffered from childhood allergies.  She maintains a totally gluten-free and nut-free kitchen to start, so I had hope. I emailed her with the daunting list and crossed my fingers.

Angela, owner of Liberation GF Bakery, accepted the challenge and got right to work on ingredient lists so that I could check them off.  Back and forth, back and forth.  Can he have margarine? Only if it isn't made with canola oil (such as Earth's Balance Vegan Spread).  What could she use to dye the frosting? Thinking of all kinds of natural food based dyes like berries that she could safely use. It turned out that we couldn't have frosting anyway since he vomited after testing the margarine.

Angela was so patient, and more than anything, she made me feel like she was vested in giving W a normal birthday, that she could feel my disappointment at the thought of just no frosting.  She offered to bake a test cake that we could try a few days before the party to ensure that he wouldn't have a reaction on his special day.

The test cake came the day before his actual birthday and we tried it that night. Unfortunately, the results of the test cake were a failure.  I was so disappointed. I was so sad for my sweet boy.

I finally realized that all of my feelings revolved around my need for W to have a normal birthday party.  He won't care or realize that he is supposed to be blowing out a candle on top of a yummy baked confection! In the end, W's candle sat atop a strawberry, which he can and did eat.

 

So we don't have any pictures of W digging his fingers into cake and smearing the frosting all over, but that's okay.  Maybe  I will let him have a smash cake when he is four.  After all, don't you as an adult still yearn sometimes to just dig in with both hands, and stuff your face with cake!

P.S.  I would highly recommend Angela and Liberation GF Bakery to anyone who needs an allergy or gluten friendly baker.  She is very talented and the cake that the rest of us had at the party was delicious (highly recommend the Vanilla Bean!). She can be found at www.liberationgfbakery.com or her facebook page, www.facebook.com/liberationglutenfreebakery.

The Death Cookie

Whether his lack of reactions made us lower our guard or whether it was just a hope that W would finally be able to eat with some sense of normalcy, W was given a toddler biscuit on Christmas Day.  W, shortly after putting it in his mouth started breaking out into hives around his mouth.We gave him Benadryl, which helped to eliminate the hives.  He was still fussy, and within about 15 minutes, the hives returned dramatically and increased in number.  Then came the vomiting.  Again, it was Linda Blair on steroids. 

What many people assume about allergies is that an Epi Pen is only used in cases where someone's throat is closing up and they can't breathe.  This is not the case.  Our allergy action plan, provided to us by our allergist, lists SEVERAL instances where the Epi Pen should be administered.  Of course in circumstances including swelling of the face and/or throat, but also when there is a combination of symptoms, such as...

You guessed it! Vomiting and extreme hives!

We had to administer the Epi Pen to my sweet, 11 month, baby boy.  And when I say "we", I mean that his pediatrician grandpa and grandma did it while I hide crying in the laundry room. I am not quite sure where my hubby was in all this because again I was hiding. From my spot a safe distance way I did hear the click of the Pen and then the shrieks of my sweet boy. While the epinephrine did rob W of all his coloring, make him very sleepy and clingy, he was dramatically better almost instantly.

There wasn't a need to administer a second Pen as is sometimes the case, but we did have to give him a steady does of Benadryl for three days following.  If we came close to missing one of his doses, the hives would start to pop up again.

After it was all over, four different adults in my family looked at the ingredients list, surmising what the culprit could have been. They cut out the ingredient list and gave it to me to take to the allergist. When I finally took a look at the list myself, I saw it...Whey.  Whey is milk and W has a milk allergy.  Some foods will have allergens bolded or included in a separate place at the bottom following the words "Contains allergens...".  This label had neither, but following the word Whey it did say "(from milk)" which can be confusing.

Not 100% sure that his milk allergy would have cause such an extreme reaction, we took the list to the allergist who suggested testing for wheat and sunflower oil.

Both were positive.

Out of the four main ingredients in the toddler biscuit, W was allergic to three of them.  Thus the reason why the toddler biscuit is hereto-after known as the death cookie. 

The List Gets Longer - Part 2

After breaking out into hives from a visit to the grocery store, the allergist suggested that we go ahead and test the top 8 allergies (http://www.foodallergy.org/allergens) that account for 90% of all food allergies.  Results: We already knew of the eggs, but we now had a diagnosed peanut and milk allergy.

Since the peanut diagnosis was not the result of an encounter, we were encouraged to rid our house of peanuts and products with peanuts, which resulted in binge eating of a lot of Halloween candy!

Following this test, we enjoyed close to two months of zero food related reactions.  For the first time since he was born, the list of foods that W could eat, outnumbered the things that he couldn't.

That was of course until the dreaded DEATH COOKIE (sorry Mom).  

The List Gets Longer - Part 1

So we had the diagnosis of an egg allergy long before the time that W's started on solid food.  Fast forward to 6 months of age and we gave him his first food, bananas.

At first there was no reaction. He loved bananas, but slowly we saw his cradle cap (which we thought we had under control) come back.  I had my suspicions and so when I started feeding him apples next, we stopped the bananas.

The third food we tried was avocado.  He didn't seem to like it too much, but I kept trying, spooning it into his mouth. He threw it up.  And by that I don't mean he spit up or gagged because he didn't like it.  It was full on Linda Blair in baby form.  We abandoned the avocado and went back to bananas only to see the same results with the bananas but on a larger scale and with hives to boot!

Back to apples.

For around 2 months we would try one food a week with several attempts resulting in throwing up or hives.  Each time...back to apples.

Our NO list now included eggs, bananas, avocado, kiwi, potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes and lamb.  We found a wonderful allergist who took my call every Friday morning to discuss what food to try next and we found success and a YES list that eventually got longer than just apples.

The Gnome King

As a child of the 80's, the cult classic, "Return to Oz", inspired both fascination and fear. The scene where the villainous Gnome King is defeated by swallowing a chicken egg (which are deadly poisonous to gnomes) now resonates on a whole new level for me.

These days I find myself living in fear of eggs. Panic stricken by even having them in my refrigerator (double wrapped in plastic bags and hidden in the back in case one of the children decides that raw eggs would be such a great snack!)  Just the mention of French Toast at daycare sent me into frenzy. Why?

When W was 3 months old I was making a quiche for dinner.  Just as I was finishing up my prep, W started to get fussy and by the time I had the quiche in the oven, he was screaming.  In a hurry to get him, I washed my hands quickly (not carefully) and picked him up. Within minutes hives started to appear all over his face, arms, and torso.  Just a bit later, one eye began to swell.

After a dose of Benadryl we rushed him to the pediatrician who told us that it looked very much like an allergic reaction.  A visit with the allergist a few days later confirmed that W was allergic to eggs and that his reaction was brought on through contact with the egg.

The level of allergies is measured by IgE, Immunoglobulin E, which is a type of antibody that goes into action when a allergen is present.  In order for W to be labeled as allergic to eggs his level needed to be 2 or higher when egg is present (this is for children under the age of 5). His first testing at 3 months resulted in a 2.  At 7 months, his level was a 14 and at his last test at 9 months, it was 30.

How sensitive is he?
He has reacted by touch twice, and has broken out into rashes twice when eggs were being cooked around him. He cannot have the white or the yolk (the white is usually the more allergy provoking part anyways).  From what we can tell, he doesn't react to baked goods when he touches them, but he can obviously not eat them.

Will he grow out of his allergy?
80% of children grow out of an egg allergy.  This being said, his testing shows increases of IgE not decreases.  Out of all of his allergies, the egg is the worst for now, and Eggs Benedict will likely be off the menu for life, but I have every hope that he will one day be able to eat piece of cake or a brownie.

So that was how our allergy story began and why I can never look at Fairuza Balk the same again.

Introduction

I am approaching W's birthday with a sense of sadness and relief.  Sadness that my baby will turn 1 next week, but relief that I can say that at 1 year of age, he is happy and healthy and can cross off what has been an interesting year to say the least.

In an effort to help my family and friends understand our past years journey and what lies ahead, I've decided to start this blog, named for the question I get most often.  The one thing that has helped more than anything during this year is to talk to and read about other families, their struggles and their successes. Hopefully this will pay it forward.

Here is the list of allergies as it stands today:

Eggs
Dairy (milk, cheese, butter, etc.)
Wheat
Peanuts
Tree Nuts
Latex
Bananas
Avocados
Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes
Carrots
Kiwi
Pumpkin
Seeds and Oils (specifically sunflower, grapeseed, canola)
Cauliflower
Black Beans
Dogs
Cats

UPDATE: Canola oil is off the list after a negative skin test.  Woohoo!