Sunday, June 7, 2009
Peanuts!!!!!
It has been such a crazy three weeks for us here. Wow!
Gabe was so extremely sick. We saw 4 doctors before getting in to his DAN! doctor (the only one who actually didn't blow us off) and found out that Gabe has a peanut allergy! It started almost three weeks ago when Gabe woke up and got sick in bed with vm + diarrhea. Never a good start to the day! I assumed that morning that he had caught something from the dirty gym playroom that he goes to every evening with Dad until it went on for about 3 days and wasn't getting better. We saw an MD and an ER doctor, got x-rays of his tummy, urine and stool cultures, etc. All negative and looked fine. Now, being that I am his mom, I knew that it wasn't this "crazy stomach bug" that these docs were passing it off as. Mommy knows best...always! I may have been ok with the tummy bug theory if Gabe had other symptoms commonly known to accompany vm+dr like *fever*, chills, body aches, *fatigue*, etc. He only had vomiting sporatically in the night time or early mornings and had bright neon yellow stools allllll dayyyyyy. We went through a whole perscription of nausea meds and a whole bottle of Immoduim to no prevail. Deep down I knew that it had something to do with his new diet, but I just couldn't figure out what. None of the docs seemed to think it sounded like a food allergy. I even googled and asked around to see if anyone else had these issues when going gfcf. No one seemed to know anything or had anything so severe happen. So, I waited to see if this "flu bug" would go away on it's own. Almost 7 days later it was still happening. After a 2 day no vomiting streak (we were elated)Mike gave Gabe a PB&J that night before bed and Gabe ended up getting very sick that next morning. Mike asked me if I thought it could be the peanut butter bothering him and I quickly said,"well, he's been eating pb his whole life, so why would it affect him now?" We dismissed the idea and we finally got in to his DAN! doctor who asked us if we were feeding him anything new or different. We then told him that we had questioned the pb and he said that it was highly likely that his peanut allergy was always being masked by the gluten built-up in his intestines. Since he was so clogged up his whole life it never caused a problem until we removed the gluten and casein. Isn't that strange? We weren't %100 sure, but were willing to do ANYTHING to get him to stop vomiting every morning and pooping terrible yellow colors! We have now been gluten, casein, dairy, yeast, and nut-free for 6 days now and I am extremely happy to say that Gabe has not vomited at all! It must be the peanuts. We also found out just yesterday that we think Gabe can't process soy well either. Mike's mom heard about Gabe's nut allergy and went out and bought a soy-based peanut butter for Gabe. She made him some "peanut butter fudge" with the soy butter and he LOVED it. We had a wedding to attend yesterday evening, so Mike's mom kept Gabe for us. Turns out he had terrible bowels all evening after eating the soy based pbutter fudge. We told her to stop giving it to him and he is back to normal bowels again today. So, now we have yet another allergy to avoid. LOL - I have to laugh, otherwise I may cry. :)
I just cannot wait to see how well Gabe does now that we have removed (hopefully) all problem foods! I cannot imagine how terribly miserable he must have been this whole time I've been feeding him these foods that hurt him. :( He just sat there in silence and pain. I always wondered why he hated eating and only ate small amounts periodically. If he ate, he hurt. If he didn't eat, he hurt. :( Makes me soooooooooo sad to imagine. I will never, ever let that happen to him again. This is why I want to be able to write these blogs in hopes that someone who hasn't tried the diet will read about our story and at least give it a shot. Even if your child doesn't miraculously heal from it like some kids do, it will at least help them to have a better quality of life! That is all I want for Gabe, the BEST life possible! I will never give up hope!
I found a quote the other day that I LOVE. Not sure who said it....but it was directed towards Pharma companies! Love it. :)
"You may have silenced my child, but you will never silence me!"
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Wow, thats really amazing! i love the quote at the end too. ill have to memorize that :)
ReplyDeletebtw - you guys are a beautiful family :)!!
Although there are plenty of other nut butters out there you can try (cashew, almond, macadamia, etc.) in an effort to replace the peanut butter, you might try sunbutter. It's made from sunflower seeds and - I don't have a source to quote - but I've read that an extremely low number of people have allergies to sunflower seeds as opposed to different types of legumes (peanuts) and tree nuts.
ReplyDeleteWe use sunbutter in our home as a PB replacement and I've grown to love it more than peanut butter. The flavor is much more subtle than peanut butter but it can be used in exactly the same way as PB, to include substitution for PB in recipes.
Jade I am so glad things are going better for Mr. Gabe. I've been thinking about you guys. As you know things have been pretty crazy around here with our new addition to the family. I'll do a better job of keeping in touch. I think you are doing a great job with Gabe. Don't blame yourself! When the medical community is telling you one thing and your instinct is telling you something else, it is hard to know what to do. Your a great mommy!
ReplyDeleteJade - I wanted to send you an email message but you do not have contact information included on your profile page. What I am wondering is if you were at Dr. Hulseman's conference in January? You look so familiar and I'm wondering if you are one of the people there I remember seeing.
ReplyDeleteThanks everyone! :)
ReplyDeleteAutismMomma~ Thanks for the suggestion about the sunbutter....I will try that! I didn't attend Dr. HUlseman's conference, but I did attend Dr. Justus' conference he held. Were you by chance at that one? My email is jadepjoseph@gmail.com, if you ever want to email me about anything feel free. :) I am also on twitter under JadePJoseph.
Abby,
I completely understand that you are probably so busy and tired! I hope you are getting some rest. If you guys need anything at all please let us know! I would love to help watch the kids for you to get a nap in or something!
Alicia~ Thank you! I know, I think that quote says a thousand words all in one sentence! :)
Have you ever done an IgG allergy test? Our DAN doctor suggested it. When we started biomed, Hayden, my son had 43 food allergies. Two years later, he has 20. I know that's still a lot, but it's getting better. :) With time, he'll improve. :) Maybe he will even be able to eat peanuts again!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Crystal. That is encouraging to hear! Has anyone looked in to the BAX3000 Allergicare centers? They are through like a chiro office? They supposedly cure allergies to just about anything. We have started researching it a little.
ReplyDelete