Many of my friends have asked how Jack is doing, and I've started to lovingly refer to him as my Little Digestive Nightmare. In May he was diagnosed with allergies to Milk, Eggs and Peanuts and was forced to put him on Alimentum Formula. I kept him on that liquid gold, and I do mean gold, as in it was costing us $250 a month to feed just Jack, until September. At that point I decided to put him on soy formula and then soy milk. He didn't show any negative effects to the formula switch, so I thought we were good.
Of course I did have my concerns about putting Jack on so much soy, but I weighed my options. Keep him on Alimentum and go broke or take my chances with premature puberty and elevated levels of estrogen because of soy. I went with soy and decided to trust God with puberty.
I also like to wait to see if the Dr. brings things up. Whenever I hear something I default to, "I'm probably being paranoid so I should wait and see what other evidence comes up." And I really trust my pediatrician so I waited till Jack's one year appointment to see if she brought up the whole estrogen thing, and SHE DID! So I immediately took him off soy milk and switched him to rice milk, er, rice drink.
But that wasn't the only thing we may have discovered at his appointment. He only gained 13 ounces in three months. So, now we're looking at whether or not he's allergic to soy. I go back in a few weeks to see if he's gained much weight. If not I'll have to do another allergy test and then probably eliminate all soy from his life.
In the meantime, I'm supposed to give Jack anything he wants to eat, except of course anything with dairy, eggs or peanuts! Quite the dilemma. I have been making lots of meats and I've also been adjusting many of my recipes to egg-free and dairy-free. Peanuts aren't too prevalent in our menu, so that hasn't been too difficult to eliminate.
The best find came this week when I was told that flax seed can be an egg substitute by dear Katie. It has helped tremendously. Muffins and pancakes this week! Yeah! And the biggest blessing in all of this is that Mati and Reagan haven't noticed anything different! I'm thrilled!
And so the nightmare may not be so bad..."Here comes the sun, little darling..."
4 comments:
Poor little guy...that sounds like a big challenge for you.
Just curious...do they have any idea what causes allergies like that? Do they think it's something he might grow out of, or will it be a lifetime thing?
Can he eat avocados? They are so cheap right now and such a great source of fat...
So glad my wealth of useless information was finally useful to someone!!!
XOXOX
Sounds like Jack would fit right in with my family. :-)
Seriously, I'm so sorry. Cooking for little people is tough. Cooking for little people with allergies is just depressing. K2 is back to having eggs, which has made life easier. Still, I'm curious to hear how to use flax seed as an egg replacer. Could you post on that?
K2 really likes having gf, df waffles or pancakes (just find a vegan, wheat-based recipe) with cashew butter on top. The cashew butter is high in protein and a little bit sweeter than peanut butter. Another fun snack (kinda pricey) is freeze-dried fruit. Both of my kids still eat purees of steamed veggies, which are naturally allergy-free and super healthy.
Yikes! This sounds like quite the culinary challenge! May God bless you with patience and perseverance as you deal with it. You're an awesome mommy! Hang in there!
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