Big Mistake

While chewing gum the other day Lucas got some in his hair. Well, he got A LOT in his hair. Shocking right, that a 3 year old would get gum in his hair? I was trying to avoid cutting his hair so we started working on the gum to get it out. It was in there good. When I was a kid my mom used peanut butter to get gum out of my hair and I have since used it on my girls to get it out of theirs. But since Lucas is allergic to peanuts I was hesitant. So Wade and I decided to try just a tiny bit( the size of a pea) to loosen up the gum. We weren't going to touch his skin and we would bathe him immediately. BIG MISTAKE!! Within about 3 minutes Lucas was hysterically rubbing his eyes and itching his skin...all over. His eyes were swollen and watery, nose was running, and his skin was totally breaking out. On his shoulder below where I was trying to get the gum out was the worst. I immediately stopped and we bathed him and gave him benadryl. The next morning we gave him a breathing treatment. I'm not sure if the coughing attack was related or not but you never know.

Until now, Lucas has only been affected after ingesting foods he can't have. So now we realize that we have to be way more careful. We don't eat a lot of peanut butter but we do have some in the house. We might have to become a peanut free house!

Bug bites too ??!!

Saturday afternoon Lucas woke up from his nap complaining about his hand and left leg. Wade gave it a good look and started yelling for me from the other room. His hand and leg were both completely swollen. Swollen and tight. He was limping around and fussing a little. We gave him some Benadryl and by bedtime he wasn't complaining anymore. Sunday morning he was still just a swollen as before but still wasn't complaining. We were headed to a family reunion for the day and I knew that my cousin who is a doctor would be there. We gave him more Benadryl and asked my cousin about it when we got there. I was concerned that maybe it was a spider bite. He said it wasn't. It was just a mosquito bite. What??? A mosquito bite will do THAT to him?? Crazy!! And if I spray repellent on him it will probably aggravate his skin and eczema.Ugh...

Cereal Bars

Its always so hard to find snacks that Lucas can eat. So when I find something that he can have that he also LOVES its like winning the lottery. For a while now I've been Buying Nature's Choice multi-grain cereal bars for him. He loves them, can eat them, and they are healthy. He not only eats them for breakfast but for snacks too. So we usually go through at least a couple of boxes a week. But they are expensive. The bigger he is getting the more of them he can eat too. So I got the company's email address off of the back of the box and sent them an email letting them know how much we love their product and asking if they had any coupons. They replied back the very next day thanking me for the email and letting me know that coupons were being sent to me in the mail. The came a week or so later and I used them in conjunction with a sale that Kroger was having which got me a great deal on Lucas' favorite snack.



So, since coupons on natural foods are hard to come by and they are so expensive, try contacting the company. They will most likely be thrilled to have positive feedback and very willing to send you a coupon...or maybe even a free sample! Let me know how it goes!

Peach Cobbler

Here is a recipe that we make fairly often for many reasons.

#1 I can substitute ingredients making it ok for the entire family to eat...including Lucas.
#2 Super easy!!!
#3 It's YUMMY!!!!!

1 stick of butter (we use Blue Bonnet light margarine)
1 cup of flour(self rising)
1cup of sugar
3/4 cup of milk(we use soy)
1 large can peaches (not in syrup but in pear juice- which makes it healthier anyway. Walmart sells this and it is their brand which makes it cheap as well.)

Melt butter in a casserole dish in the ove(350deg) while its preheating. Mix the flour, sugar, and milk in a bowl. When butter is melted, pour mixture on top of it. Pour peaches on top of mixture. Bake until golden brown.

Lucas

Lucas was born 3 years ago in April. We thought having #5 would be easy. There wasn't much we hadn't already dealt with already with the other kids. So we were all excited and thought this would be a breeze!

Like most babies, Lucas developed baby acne after he was a few weeks old. His actually seemed to be a little worse than my other children and he seemed to be bothered by it. At night he was restless and would rub his face on his bed or his blanket. When I took him in for his 2 month check-up I mentioned this to the Doctor. The Doctor wasn't alarmed and said it would go away soon. And he also said that there was no way that Lucas is itching or hurting from it. So I went home and waited for it to go away. But it didn't. In fact, it had spread to other parts of his body and I could tell that it was definitely itching.

A couple of months later we were back for another appointment. This time the Doctor said it looked like eczema. So my question was "what is he allergic to?" The doctor said that he didn't have food allergies because I was breastfeeding him and that sometimes babies just have eczema. While I wasn't satisfied with this answer, I still went home and followed the Doctor's instructions. I changed our laundry detergents, soaps, shampoos, lotions, diapers, wipes,etc. I bought all of the expensive stuff that was hypoallergenic and fragrance free. I was willing to do anything to make my baby feel better.

Changing our household products did help Lucas a little but didn't help the eczema. His skin seemed less irritated but it still wasn't clear. It broke my heart. Babies are supposed to feel soft and smell like baby powder. My baby was rough and smelled like anti-itch cream.

At about 10 months I decided to stop nursing and start giving Lucas formula. But with every formula I tried we had more problems. He would cry with a tummy ache, his skin would break out more or he would throw it all up. So back to the doctor we went...AGAIN. ( Running to the doctor all of the time is very out of character to me. I usually try to take care of the kids' common ailments at home and if that doesn't work then I will call the doctor. If that doesn't work I will make an appointment. I have found that if my kids aren't very sick when I take them in, they will be by the time we get home. And the last thing that I need in my house is for 5 kids to get sick from the germs at the Doctor's office!! ) By this time Lucas was a year old and it was time to start whole milk. The doctor encouraged me to mix the milk with the formula to see how he tolerated it, Especially considering the trouble he had been having with the formula. That's what we did. And he tolerated it ... 0%. He kept throwing it up immediately.

I made another doctor appointment. But this time it wasn't with the Pediatrician, but an Allergist. I needed answers and I needed my baby to feel better. I spent just a couple of minutes with the allergist telling him what had been going on and he called the nurse in for an allergy test. Before she completed the grid on his back he was crying in discomfort and the results were already showing. His allergies... corn, peanut, egg, and milk.

Since then we have tried to avoid these allergens. Peanut is a common allergy which makes it easier to avoid. Milk isn't too bad because he can have soy milk and it can be substituted in recipes. Egg is a little scarier because it affects his breathing rather than his skin. We now have to carry and epi-pen. Corn is extremely difficult because it is in EVERYTHING!!! It hard to avoid.

Lucas has not outgrown any of his allergies yet. We were hopeful that he would by age 2 or 3 but in fact, a couple of them are worse. He has also developed asthma which usually goes hand in hand with allergies.Daily breathing treatments are apart of our routine now. He even knows when he needs one and will say "Mommy, I need a tweetment".He also knows what his allergies are. If he is offered something he knows he can't have he will say "that's not my kind". But he is also learning to use that on things that he CAN have but doesn't want. Like I'll say "Lucas eat your green beans" and he'll say "its not my kind".

Welcome!!!

I created this blog to help myself and maybe even others deal with the strains of having a dietary restriction in my home. My child has food allergies and it has turned our lives upside down. What can we feed him? Where do we shop? What brands do we buy? What recipes are out there? What restaurants can we eat at? These questions have been occupying my mind for over 2 years now. I spend hours in grocery stores reading labels and leave with a small bag of food, a large grocery bill and a massive headache! I often meet others who are in the same predicament and we swap ideas and advice. Its comforting to know that I'm not the only one dealing with this. So I thought it would be helpful to have somewhere that I could share what I find and others can share what they find. Maybe we can help each other make this situation a little easier.

I invite anyone to leave comments, questions, suggestions, recipes, ideas, etc. Please share what you know and I promise to do the same. Thank You!!!!!