[Panserbjorne]

JaneS-this is mainly for you and mostly as a result of your recent post about your ds.

You have said you saw a huge change in terms of tolerance with the rotation diet. Do you think the diet would be as effective if you only rotate "problem" foods-or do you really need to do all of htem? I am being pulled towards (though we have already done it-twice.) Thing is my kids react strongly and clearly to both eggs and dairy and I'd like them to have both. I'm feeling torn. What has your experience been trying to get all the TF's in? Do you also rotate supplements? How long did it take to stop seeing a reaction?

I'm really inspired by your photos. I'm wondering if there is more I could be doing for my babies, especially the little one. Thanks in advance.

ANyone else with experience-I'd love to hear your thoughts as well!

 

[newcastlemama]

I am interested too. I am getting tired of avoiding all these foods (esp eggs and dairy)! Now that I am pregnant I am having serious craving for raw cream, butter and yogurt! Help!

 

[Panserbjorne]

Hey, Newcastlemama-congratulations!

 

[quietserena]

I think this should work and here's why. DH is allergic to dairy and citrus and ragweed (among other things..) but he can tolerate some dairy as long as he's not having a reaction to citrus or it isn't the end of August when the ragweed is blooming.

He can sleep next to the cat and pet her, unless he has had ice cream or an orange.

Is this making any sense? Basically, he can tolerate one allergen at a time.

 

[bigknitwit]

A little OT question: how do you know if a person "tolerates" a food and/or other allergen if they don't show skin disturbances? I know you're supposed to eat a food and then watch/wait for 4 days to see if anything develops, but it's hard to differenciate every little stomach issue, or headache, etc and assume it's a reaction.

 

[newcastlemama]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigknitwit A little OT question: how do you know if a person "tolerates" a food and/or other allergen if they don't show skin disturbances? I know you're supposed to eat a food and then watch/wait for 4 days to see if anything develops, but it's hard to differenciate every little stomach issue, or headache, etc and assume it's a reaction.

It is tricky. I had a food sensitivity blood test. At first I was not sure if I really had a dairy issue. For me with dairy it seems to be a cumulative and delayed effect. So if I eat a moderate to large amount of dairy I will have arthritis feeling in my hands and body (I have Lyme disease) a few days later. Or is I just eat a little all the time I will have symptoms.

Everyone is different and that is why I have eliminated foods and challenged them a few times to make sure.

Thanks Firefaery

 

[quietserena]

For me, my heart starts beating really hard after I have something I don't tolerate well.

DD gets a red bottom if I have something that she's not tolerating well, and also she sleeps poorly and is generally unhappy. First time she had bananas she had 20 minute naps (usually 40 minutes) that day and was really clingy the rest of the day. I'm going to try bananas again in a few weeks and hope it's better then.

 

[kdmama33]

For DS2, a lot of his food intolerance symptoms are behavioral. Feed the kid blueberries and you might want to find a new home for a day or two. He has bowel issues that crop up when he's had a food that he can't tolerate, too. He has perfect bowel movements when he's eating "clean".

Also, as a PP mentioned, his food intolerances/allergies increase the symptoms of other allergies. For example, I can tell if he's had wheat because his dust allergies go haywire. And he gets the allergy shiners when he's had dairy, too. They go away when he's been off dairy for a long time.

 

[Panserbjorne]

My kids have different reactions unique to the specific allergens...it took awhile to sort them out. For instance, ds looses bladder control with eggs, dd scratches her face incessantly with gluten, they get bumpy with dairy (even raw) and whiny as all get out with cashews. There are others, but you see my point. I can almost always tell what they had. A couple of weeks ago ds was whining and crying all day. I looked at my husband and asked where he got cashews. (it was the lemon larabar)

IT takes time and attention to figure it out. Honestly I don't think they had these reactions on the SCD. I'm thinking of going back (again) though I'd prefer the rotation diet, I think.

 

[newcastlemama]

Quote:

Originally Posted by firefaery IT takes time and attention to figure it out. Honestly I don't think they had these reactions on the SCD. I'm thinking of going back (again) though I'd prefer the rotation diet, I think.

I feel like I could handle SCD with eggs and dairy. Did they have their allergy foods everyday on SCD?
Did you heal your celiac with SCD?

 

[Panserbjorne]

I honestly don't think I stuck with it long enough for the celiac thing. I KNOW we still have those issues. I did give them eggs on the SCD and don't remember it being an issue. Dairy kind of was, but I still used it. They did have cashews on SCD too...it's hard to think back though on the behavioral stuff. They improved significantly overall-Selkie finally started growing hair, her teeth which didn't have enamel got some. Quillian and Selkie had bumps on their arms, legs and face went away. I was paying far more attention to that at that point than the behavioral issues.

Now that I know the clear connections it would be interesting to see. It's hard because I feel like it's TOTALLY harmful to reintroduce these things improperly. Then I realize that so much of hte general population does it on a daily bases without any thought at all. Not that it makes it any better-but it helps to have some perspective and realize it isn't the end of the world if it goes badly-you know? They weren't anaphylactic to dairy, it just made their stool VERY loose and messy. Worst case scenario they have loose messy stool for a couple of days. Emrys though has never had it directly and reacted STRONGLY through my milk-to even homeopathic remedies in lactose. IT makes me nervous to introduce him.

 

[melissa17s]

Children can outgrow allergies. I would wait to introduce until after 3 years old. Also, you might take them to an allergist to run tests on specifically known past allergies to see, if their body is still responding negatively or not.

 

[caedmyn]

My understanding of rotation diets is that it's okay to rotate things they react mildly to (or don't react to but allergy tested positive for), but things they react strongly to should be completely avoided.

On the healing from celiac, I recently read that many people are misdiagnosed as celiac but actually have problems with lectins. That's why Gottschal (sp?) of the SCD thought that it was possible to heal from celiac--avoiding the lectins in wheat/gluten for a period of time can make it possible to heal and be able to tolerate those lectins in the future. That's also why it's often said that celiacs can tolerate sprouted or sourdough wheat bread, because traditional preparation breaks down the lectins. However, a true celiac has problems with components of gluten other than the lectins and thus the SCD won't "heal" them in that sense, and they won't be able to tolerate sprouted or sourdough gluten-containing grains. Or at least that's my understanding of what I read.
http://www.krispin.com/lectin.html#Become

 

[Panserbjorne]

THat part I understand...I don't know that dd will ever heal from celiac (as she is a true celiac) though I'm not convinced 100% that I am. I did try sprouted sourdough-traditionally prepared a month ago which was my first gluten exposure in years and I still reacted.

I would never introduce IgE reactive foods, but I'm wondering about the cashews...they have noticable reactions but I wouldn't consider them to be major-KWIM? They don't swell up or have difficulty breathing from dairy-so is that safe to try and rotate? I know what I've read, but the more I read the less I *know* what I'm doing. I'm more going on other's experiences here. We're doing well over here, but I have a dream of a day when I don't have to worry about whether or not our nuts were cross contaminated with dairy or soy and I can just BUY SOMETHING and feed it to them without 20 questions.

I'll always be a whole foodie, but it would be great to have the option of eggs or dairy. IT would be nice to not worry about whether or not the larabar has cashews. Maybe I'll start manifesting..."wouldn't it be nice to not have to worry about food?" My dreams WILL be answered!

 

[HerbanGirl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by firefaery Hey, Newcastlemama-congratulations!

:

 

[caedmyn]

FWIW, this is my thought on rotation diets: I think if you're going to do one and expect to see some healing, you'll have to rotate all foods and not just certain ones. The reason I think this is because if you rotate all foods, theoretically it should be pretty easy to see if there's a reaction to a particular food, whereas if you're only rotating a few "problem" foods and eating everything else daily or regularly, there could still be chronic low-level reactions to other foods that you're missing and that prevent healing. But if your goal is just to expand your food options, then you could try rotating whatever "problem" foods you want. It seems like this would work best if you only rotate foods that need multiple exposures to provoke a reaction (for instance, I just did an egg trial and it took a week for me to see a reaction from DD)--if one exposure provokes a reaction, then I would think you're going to get a reaction every time you encounter that food in the rotation and you're not really accomplishing anything. I've seriously considering rotating eggs for DD but I'm not sure it'd really make life much easier.

IIRC what JaneS did with her DS was a full rotation diet, eliminating anything that provoked a noticeable reaction. I think she included foods he mildly RAST (or whatever form of allergy testing she used) tested positive to, because there were so many of them, but anything that he noticeably reacted to in the rotation got taken out.

It doesn't seem like it would hurt to try a rotation diet for non-anaphalactic allergens for a while, but if your DC react to one exposure of the allergen, I'm not sure a rotation diet including those allergens is going to get you anywhere.

OT, but...so do you include the other tree nuts in your diets even though your DC react to cashews?

 

[Panserbjorne]

I did. I don't think it was the nut that was the issue but the mold. They also react to peanuts and have a pretty big aspergillus allergy (which are found in high concentrations in both) WHen tested they were positive for peanuts and cashews, but nothing else nut-wise.

 

[caedmyn]

That makes sense--I was just wondering since that went against the conventional advice to avoid all nuts if you react to one.