Introducing my DD and her list of issues

[CrunchyChristianMama]

I'm new to this forum. My poor DD has been struggling with different foods and such her whole short (18 month) life, and we are finally figuring out what's wrong.

It started when she was only a few months old and having reflux problems. When I switched to raw dairy, she no longer had any reflux issues. She has always had dark circles under her eyes and has always had sleep problems. She will go from sleeping through the night one night to being up every hour or two the next.

Then, about a month ago we visited family out of town and I let myself not be so strict about her diet. They didn't go crazy, but we did eat out some and drink store-bought (non-homogonized, vat-pasturized) cow's milk. She ended up with blisters all over her bottom and labia anywhere poop touched for any amount of time. She was miserable.

So we had an ALCAT food sensitivities test done. It came back with a whole laundry list of sensitivities. It's so overwhelming! She only had one severe intolerance (sunflower), but many moderate, and tons of mild intolerances. But, cow's milk was listed as acceptable. Hmmmm. So yesterday we had another blood draw (pure torture for us both) for and IgG test. We should hopefully get the results back this week for that. I'm thinking maybe she has a true allergy to cow's milk? Who knows.

If anyone has any support I would appreciate it. It's really hard to feed her right now and I don't know how hard core to go with the ALCAT results.

Thanks!

[dannic]

Welcome (so sorry you're here, lol)!
My 5 yr old dd is intolerant to gluten,dairy, and eggs. 2 yr old dd reacts to strawberries, pineapple, and then also many sals/hist type foods. My oldest, 7 yr old ds has no food issues that we know of.
Come join us in the chat thread--that's where we all hang out and commiserate!

[kjbrown92]

We had the ALCAT test done for DS and DD2. It missed potatoes on DS (at least a moderate for him) and corn on DD2 (her worst). But we took all the other stuff out and man, what a difference. You said you also had an IgG test blood draw. Are you testing for IgE as well? For us, it's been 2 years almost, and we've added back some foods.

[CrunchyChristianMama]

Originally Posted by kjbrown92

We had the ALCAT test done for DS and DD2. It missed potatoes on DS (at least a moderate for him) and corn on DD2 (her worst). But we took all the other stuff out and man, what a difference. You said you also had an IgG test blood draw. Are you testing for IgE as well? For us, it's been 2 years almost, and we've added back some foods.

That's encouraging to hear you see a difference. After less than a week of removing stuff we are already seeing some improvement in sleep, so that's promising.

All I know is that her paperwork said they did a blood draw for a child allergy panel. I'm not for sure if it's IgE or IgG. They aren't doing any skin testing at this time though. All of this vocab is so new to me, I'm still trying to figure out what everything is and what tests I should have done. She is very traumatized by the blood draws, so I'm really hoping to avoid any more of that if possible.

[Koalamom]

Oh Doctors. I would go on what your dd reacts to as your answer about dairy. When you avoid the bad dairy does your dd have any issues besdies the sleep issues?

As for the sleep issues, I would look into chemical intolerances like Salicylates and Amines (sp?). We have issues with foods that are like that and there is a great discusion thread on dealing with foods like that. Adding in magnesium (from epsom salt baths), molybdenum, and b6 has really helped us to tolerate sals. and amines. And most of all adding in lots pf omega 3's have helped us to tolerate those foods. Sorry if this sounds like Greek to you, It did to me when I first heard of it, but some googling will help.

[dannic]

My dd1 is reaction free off her triggers. dd2 is getting there, lol. (She licked a piece of pineapple and had 3 immediate red blotches around her mouth.) She's a bit more difficult on certain things than dd1 was at this age. And I knew your sig was familiar--I'm in your ddc.

A book I rec a lot is Healing the New Childhood Epidemics, by Bock, MD. I think it's a really good intro and great for awareness in dads, grandparents, ect who might need that.

[CrunchyChristianMama]

We got her allergy test results and it came back with nothing. Nothing at all. He also said her overall antibody levels were really low, so while the test isn't 100% accurate, he would be really surprised if she had any true allergies.

In the mean time we have been occasionally letting her eat things off the yellow (mild) intolerance list from her ALCAT and we have had random symptoms on and off. We don't know if they are from food or teething though as she is cutting her incisors right now.

We're going to trial some raw cow dairy this week and see if she has any reactions as cow's milk hasn't shown up on any of her tests. We'll see how it goes.

[dannic]

Let us know how it goes.