Update on Sandhya (long)

Some of you have been following my ongoing issues with my DD. She is now 6 months old and 10 lbs. In the last couple of weeks we started to see clues that her slow gain might be the result of food allergies (she reacted to regular formula and then also to Nutramigen which is hydrolyzed cow protein based). I cut out dairy a couple of weeks ago and had a soy latte one day. Again, she wasn't herself.
So we had an allergist appointment yesterday. The skin tests confirmed my suspicions. She is allergic to dairy (milk protein and casein), soy and eggs (white and yolk). There is some risk of false positives in allergy testing on infants (about 10%) but it is highly unlikely that they are all false, especially since I've seen her react with my own eyes.
I am now on a strict elimination diet removing all dairy and dairy ingredients, egg and soy/soy ingredients. The soy one is actually going to be the hardest because soy (soy oil and soy lecithin) is in all prepared foods.
Anyways, I'm pretty devastated by all of this. First of all, I'm convinced that I am going to die of starvation or worse yet I won't have the self-discipline to avoid all the foods that I need to. I am even more terrified of the thought of Sandhya starting solids and having to keep her away from all of the foods that her brother eats. Karan tried to feed her toast yesterday when I wasn't paying attention and she looked ready to go to town with it.
I almost cried when the pharmacist handed me the epi pens yesterday.
So that's our update for now. I'm going to post on the main board as well to get some general ideas about food allergies and elimination diets since its not restricted to kids. Hopefully she will outgrow them quickly!
So we had an allergist appointment yesterday. The skin tests confirmed my suspicions. She is allergic to dairy (milk protein and casein), soy and eggs (white and yolk). There is some risk of false positives in allergy testing on infants (about 10%) but it is highly unlikely that they are all false, especially since I've seen her react with my own eyes.
I am now on a strict elimination diet removing all dairy and dairy ingredients, egg and soy/soy ingredients. The soy one is actually going to be the hardest because soy (soy oil and soy lecithin) is in all prepared foods.
Anyways, I'm pretty devastated by all of this. First of all, I'm convinced that I am going to die of starvation or worse yet I won't have the self-discipline to avoid all the foods that I need to. I am even more terrified of the thought of Sandhya starting solids and having to keep her away from all of the foods that her brother eats. Karan tried to feed her toast yesterday when I wasn't paying attention and she looked ready to go to town with it.
I almost cried when the pharmacist handed me the epi pens yesterday.
So that's our update for now. I'm going to post on the main board as well to get some general ideas about food allergies and elimination diets since its not restricted to kids. Hopefully she will outgrow them quickly!
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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -- Theodor Seuss Geisel
Hang in there. It's super tough and you're a great mom for pursuing it to find out the cause.
I have a friend who is allergic to gluten and had a horrible time at first becasue its in everything. Supposedly more companies are catering to this allergy though, so hopefully it won't be too hard!
I can't get into any of these sites from work, but seems to be lots of info....
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=soy+free+diet&btnG=Search&meta=
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If I come across any recipes and sources I'll be sure to post them.
I am so glad you now have answers.
{{{Hugs}}}
I've been thinking about you since our daughters are the same age (and their siblings too). Good for you for investigating the situation. It's difficult now but I know you will make it work!
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I'm not trying to scare you, just share with you that it's a fine edge to walk as the parent of a child with food allergies. Food is the bounty and fuel of life, yet they can't have some of it. It's hard to foster a healthy attitude about food even when allergies aren't present, it's got to be 100 fold more difficult when allergies are present.
I hope Sandhya's allergies resolve with time.
Good for you for getting to the root of the problem. Sandhya's lucky to have such a dedicated mama.
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I don't think it will be possible to make my house egg and dairy free without starving Karan in the process. He lives on eggs and yogurt and bread. Its going to be hard enough getting enough protein and fat into Sandhya (she's already behind to begin with).
I guess only time will tell how serious this all is and whether we'll have to re-think daycare, preschool etc...
RCW - reading your post resonated with me. I have spent the last 2 days totally paralyzed when thinking about food. I have to get over this and consider the time that Sandhya is still exclusively BFing as the time I have to get our house organized and ready for when she is old enough to eat so that she can transition to solids as smoothly as possible. I need to educate the rest of my family.... including Karan and just make it work. That's all there is to it.
BTW - she's still going to be tested for wheat and nuts next week....
I'm not following. Are you referring to the GCF diet?
We're holding hope anyway and will test Ryan in a year then at a later interval. if it comes back he's not allergic we won't go hog wild but it will help us breathe a sigh of relief.
here's some links from a forum I belong to (they have an allergy subforum):
hidden dairy: http://www.users.qwest.net/~fsdebra1/refluxdairy.html
http://www.naet.com/
http://www.enjoylifefoods.com/ (sells baked goods free of the 8 major allergens)
corn:
http://corn-freefoods.blogspot.com/
http://www.cornallergens.com/list/corn-allergen-list.php
kind of alternative but sublingual drops that are supposed to treat allergies
http://allergychoices.com/se3bin/cliente.cgi?schoolname=school1000162
Yes. but some other places also work with nutritionists that focus on no casin, no gluten, no whatever diets. at least the place here in austin has an extensive nutrition program and resources linked with their autism research.
That's interesting. We will be seeing a nutritionist at Children's Hospital. I'm a little leery because my experience with nutritionists so far (my Mom saw one when she was diagnosed with type II diabetes) is that they don't really know much about ethnic diets at all. But we might get lucky here in Vancouver since there is such a diverse population.