What happens when you don't eat?

[dogmom327]

What happens (physically) when you don't eat?

DD (9 mo) has horrible sleep issues (waking constantly throughout the night) which have existed for almost her whole life. We've been working with our ND to try to figure out food sensitivities, etc. to find a cause but so far it's not working. Three weeks ago I had the flu and didn't eat for 36 hours (couldn't keep anything down but sips of water). That night DD slept soundly for 7 straight hours.

My first thought was that surely it must be something I'm eating but I'm running out of things to try (she has a ton of food sensitivities so I already eat a very limited diet). But then it dawned on me that maybe it's not an undiscovered food sensitivity--maybe it's something else. The only thing I can come up with is that I was likely in a state of ketosis. Not sure how that would effect BF but I'm feeling kind of desperate.

I'm not suggesting I want to stop eating! I'm just hoping for some ideas of physical reactions that maybe I could duplicate in a more healthy way. It's normal at this point for me to get less than 3 hours of sleep a night and it's constantly interrupted. I've been barely surviving but I'm feeling like I need to figure this out for the sake of my sanity!

I'd appreciate any thoughts

[LauraLoo]

I can't offer any specific suggestions, but have you tried posting on the allergy forum? I know that there are other mamas there that have gone or are going through what you are describing.

[FireWithin]

this has been discussed on the allergy forum. One of the thoughts is that sometimes baby is reacting to your reactions. So when you are not having a reaction, your baby is not receiving your histamine/sals/amine/etc chemical reaction. When you remove your reactions, through an illness, baby will clear up.
something to think about. I know that when i weaned my 3.5 year old, he stopped getting eczema as frequently. We still has all of his food reactions but he is not as reactive.

[kjbrown92]

What ARE you eating?

[dogmom327]

Thanks guys--I don't feel so crazy now. I was actually scared to post that thinking people would think I'm nuts.

So I eat a primal-style diet at this point: meat, fish, nuts, fruits and veggies. No dairy, no beans, no grains. The only sweeteners are stevia, honey and maple syrup.

In addition to the above limitations, I currently don't eat tomatoes, potatoes, chicken, almonds, walnuts, pecans, veal, oysters and eggs.

Some of that stuff is to address DD's known sensitivities and some is recent (the last eight things mentioned above) are because I just tested as sensitive to them. My poor ND is trying everything he can think of and the idea of DD reacting to my reaction just came up. I could technically eat a bit cleaner if I had to. For example, my only cheat is a bit of extremely dark (85% cocoa) organic chocolate. I could cut that.

I've been off things like grains, beans, refined sugars and dairy for 9 months now. I lost potatoes, soy (I was only doing some tamari occasionally) and tomatoes back around Christmas and then the things I have issues with was a bit less than a week ago.

Anyway, I appreciate any advice. I'm just starting to feel like a crazy person and although I really feel like I've toughed this out for awhile now, I also am starting to really feel like I'm really running out of stuff to eat. I'd made peace with my diet but losing things like eggs, chicken, almonds, walnuts, etc. has be going almost nuts since many of those things were staples for me.

Ultimately though I'll do what I need to do. I will BF DD at least until she's two and I'm okay with nursing her at night. It's just the lack of sleep and nursing every 15-90 minutes all night long that's slowly killing me.

[dogmom327]

I'll cross post this in the allergies section too