[JCHue]

Anyone dealing with a toddler with multiple food allergies? My son, 2 1/2, has multiple food allergies to beef, chicken, wheat, barley, rye, egg, garlic, carrots, spinach, to name a few. We are advised by the allergist to also avoid introducing peanuts, tree nuts and fish until he is older in an attempt to keep him from developing allergies to these more often life threatening allergens. Our lives are a bit isolated in an attempt to keep him safely away from all of these allergens.

Am learning to cook without the comforts of what is familiar to me...much trial and error...many dishes resembling science projects far more than dinner...but it's getting better. Dealing with the fact that food allergies affect more than just diet, since so many household products contain wheat (shampoo, cosmetics, etc.) and other normally harmless edible ingredients, means reading every label and definitely thinking outside the box when trying to identify triggers. Kisses from well meaning relatives break my son's skin out into itchy hives...either from something they have recently eaten, or from the ingredients in their lip stick.

I think the hardest part so far is not having anyone that I know personally actually understand what our life is like having a food allergic child. The things we used to take for granted, like weekend trips to visit family...never had to consider packing every meal ahead of time, and could generally count on sustaining ourselves at any number of restaurants along the way. Now it takes hours just to prepare from scratch with safe ingredients and pack meals. And then going to restaurants with said family members and having to wipe everything down and hope for no cross-contamination, and clumsily unpacking his cold packaged meal while every one else eats hot fresh, flavorful food in front of him. We never eat out unless we are out of town and away from our means of preparing our own meals. Being judged by other non-food allergic moms is also stressful...while I know it is because they do not understand the daily struggles, that they do not understand the hardships of not having modern convenience foods as a tool to fall back on when you just don't feel like whipping up a loaf of wheat and egg free bread today, it still has a way of getting into your psyche and eating away at your feelings of self worth as a mother. It's also tough having family members who know but just do not understand what it means to have a food allergic child. For instance, when you've had countless conversations with your mom about your fears surrounding foods that could cause your child to stop breathing, and she at least sounds like she understands but then you realize when she gives him Easter eggs or Christmas stockings full of candies and other foods that she really just doesn't get it. It's frustrating and very isolating.

So, anyway. This is my long winded way of asking, does any of this sound familiar to you?

[aerobaby]

I do. My guy is 19m and can currently eat 12 foods. He is allergic to the top 8 as well as so much more. I wish I could talk to you in person because I totally understand the frustrations!!! I too have to pack all DS food, can't leave home w/o everything he needs to be sustained for a day. I have been told by other non-allergic moms that i am depriving my son. Going to the store scares me and we have to carry an Epipen and Benadryl everywhere we go. It gets so tiring telling people that he can't have something.

Last week DS got his hair cut and w/o asking the stylist gave him a sucker, he is allergic to corn and anaphylactic to blue raspberry, the flavor she gave him while I was paying the other lady. He face swelled up and his eyes swelled shut. It was horrifying. He us anaphylactic to peanuts too and they are everywhere.

Have you ever been to Earthfare? They have a ton of great safe candy and food and Enjoy Life products are the best!!! They are top eight free, as well as free of sesame, potato starch and corn. Kroger is a great place to get thing like bread, they carry Ener-G brand breads (Gluten Free, egg free as well as milk and soy free). Have you ever tried subbing Flax Seed for eggs> It works great, rice flour and rice pasta are good for cooking and I cook everything in olive oil. I am luck in the fact that DS can have chicken, beef and pork, but he has textural aversions to beef and will only eat pork occasionally. I use the Method Brand and Seventh Generation cleaners at home and we have to wash everything in Free and Clear soaps. DS washes in Vanicream body wash and uses their body cream because he gets bad eczema.

[mabouffantabulous]

Oh wow. I'm so thankful we've not had to deal with allergies like this but I know others that have. I can't believe people would give you a hard time about. How scary. I'm know of a couple other boards that have special forums for dealing with allergies like this. Sharing recipes, product warnings etc. You might already know about them but just in case here they are. I hope you mommas can find the support you need. And definitely check earth fare aeromom and the natural food store. They're is much great acknowledgment of allergies like this it seems in the natural food world.

http://www.gentlechr...splay.php?f=546

http://www.mothering...splay.php?f=307

[aerobaby]

mabouffantabulous, on 21 January 2010 - 11:55 AM, said:

Oh wow. I'm so thankful we've not had to deal with allergies like this but I know others that have. I can't believe people would give you a hard time about. How scary. I'm know of a couple other boards that have special forums for dealing with allergies like this. Sharing recipes, product warnings etc. You might already know about them but just in case here they are. I hope you mommas can find the support you need. And definitely check earth fare aeromom and the natural food store. They're is much great acknowledgment of allergies like this it seems in the natural food world.

http://www.gentlechr...splay.php?f=546

http://www.mothering...splay.php?f=307

Thanks for the links. That first site is great!!!
I think the reason that natural food stores are allergy aware is because you really can't eat junk and have food allergies.

[mabouffantabulous]

aerobaby, on 21 January 2010 - 02:50 PM, said:

Thanks for the links. That first site is great!!!
I think the reason that natural food stores are allergy aware is because you really can't eat junk and have food allergies.

Woops meant to say JCHue should check out those stores. Obviously you already know about them. haha. You should definitely join GCM. It's great. Registration is open right now but it doesn't stay open all the time like on most boards.

[JCHue]

Oh wow, to the sucker incident. We had the same thing happen at our son's first hair cut with someone giving him a sucker AFTER we said he has food allergies and cannot have one. That was the first time we realized most folks not affected by food allergies have little idea what you are talking about. Luckily he didn't know what it was, and so he held it in his hand thinking it was a toy. How did you learn about the blue raspberry allergy, through this experience or testing? Has he been skin or RAST tested?

Our son has had eczema since he was an infant also. We use Dove unscented bar (the liquid has fragrance to make it smell unscented...weird), CeraVe lotion morning and night, and Gentle Naturals Baby Eczema Cream on his face when needed.

Yes, we carry Benedryl with us everywhere. I used to keep a bottle in my purse at all times, then I started getting the single dose packs. My purse is much lighter!

I love flaxseed meal...it is wonderful! I cannot imagine if our son were allergic to the entire line-up of the big 8. We have to avoid most of them, but luckily we have milk and soy that we can utilize. Of course, I initially thought, wow, great, he can have cheese. Then I read all of the labels and how cheese is made and realized he actually cannot have most of it. There are a few brands that do not include the dyes and are not cultured with baby cow enzymes (beef allergy). It's amazing the things that one little ingredient can pop up in. I never really thought about how gelatin is made either...by boiling cow horns, hooves, etc. to extract the gel like properties from them that make them hard. So, no Jell-o or even plain gelatin that some wheat free recipes call for...I recently bought some agar agar (a seaweed) to try at some point in its place.


Garlic is another hard one to avoid. Tough finding any condiment that doesn't have it in it. I had been giving my son those little Gerber turkey sticks for the longest time, thinking he must be ok w/ garlic, and then one night I sauteed some rice pasta in butter, garlic, etc. He just started pulling at his tongue and welts came up all over his face...then I put together that it was the garlic. I removed the turkey sticks from his diet and his face cleared of the nagging eczema that I could not get to go away on his cheeks for the longest time. Lots and lots of trial and error!



Are you able to use xanthan gum in baking? I read that it is a bacteria that is cultured from corn, but I'm not sure if that means folks w/ corn allergy cannot tolerate it. Do you know if your son is allergic to barley or rye? I just bought bags of each to test on our son...itchy hives popped up with both. I later read that they are more likely allergens for folks allergic to wheat. I met a lady on Facebook who mailed me all of her allergy friendly cookbooks as her sons each outgrew their allergies at ages 5 and 6...she used a lot of barley in her cooking even though one of her sons was wheat allergic, so I thought I would at least give it a shot. Holding off for now since he had a skin reaction and a runny nose.



Yes, I make it over to Earth Fare now and then. We also have the Natural Foods Market in JC. I have found a few things that are safe for my son. Many of the road blocks we run into with the allergy friendly health foods are with our son's allergens that are outside of the scope of the big 8. For cereal I like the Erwehon Crispy Brown Rice (no salt added)...it's just like Rice Krispies (I don't remember why, but our son cannot have the real RK's). Not sure if your son is eating things of this texture yet, but Ian's has a few frozen items that are free of the major allergens. My son loves the Alphatots, french fries in the shape of letters. They actually taste similar to McDonald's fries to me. I haven't been able to acquire a taste for the rice noodles yet...our son used to really love them in mac-n-cheese but seems to gag on them now...guess it's the texture.



I have found a wonderful bread recipe at http://www.glutenfre.../#comment-16198 but if your son cannot have corn, then a couple of the ingredients would have to be substituted with alternate flours. I use potato starch in place of the masa harina, but I do include the corn starch. You could probably sub potato starch in place of corn starch and find something else for the masa harina. I read through the comments a long time ago and remember folks suggesting subs for the soy and corn flours. The bread is really great...as good as regular white wheat bread in my opinion.



Funny aside (as in ironic rather than actually humorous)...we have two dogs. One has eczema and is on allergy food...they both are on allergy friendly food as it is too difficult to feed two dogs two different dog foods. As tough as it has been and still is for us to find remedies for our poor dog's skin, his allergies have made our choice of dog food safe for our son to be around. So no worries with the dogs licking him, or if he wants to feed them a treat. Everything happens for a reason, I suppose!



It's so wonderful meeting you on here! Would love to chat and share brainstorms and/or war stories...is there a private chat function (I'm new)?

[JCHue]

mabouffantabulous, on 21 January 2010 - 08:10 PM, said:

Woops meant to say JCHue should check out those stores. Obviously you already know about them. haha. You should definitely join GCM. It's great. Registration is open right now but it doesn't stay open all the time like on most boards.

Thanks for these links...will check them out!!

[Carrie]

We are only sensitive to dairy and possibly gluten, but many of my friends deal with allergies. When we have potlucks, accommodating the various allergies is always a top concern. Here is a forum with a gluten/casein-free menu planner: http://www.tfrecipes.com/forum/. The recipes obviously have other allergens in them, but there is a lot of information there for avoiding gluten.

I am so sorry that you are going through this! It is nearly impossible to socialize with other children when they all have goldfish crackers and your child is standing there with a piece of celery!

I have heard great things about the Gentle Christian Mothers board and have spent plenty of time at the MDC forums . I'm sure you'll find some support there!

[JCHue]

Hi, Carrie! Thanks so much for the link and forum suggestion. You make a great point about the socialization...we tend to stay clear of socializing around food with our son, but it's not as avoidable within our large out of town family gatherings. We would likely avoid those as well, except that my grandparents are nearing 90 and awesome...don't want my son to miss out on being around them! So, we just follow him around the entire time watching for plates, cups and crumbs within his reach, and for reactions after someone touches him with allergens on their hands. We have a limited amount of family locally, and we either have gatherings with them outside of meal times or we have a meal at our house where we can prepare everything ourselves in allergy friendly fashion. It's tough, but at least there are food companies these days which cater to food allergies, and all of the great forums around with info and guidance...the toughest part of my day, generally, is thinking of what to feed my son and how to keep him nutritionally sound. I often wonder, what did people do several years ago with food allergic children and not nearly as many resources as we have today.

[aerobaby]

JCHue, on 21 January 2010 - 05:38 PM, said:

Oh wow, to the sucker incident. We had the same thing happen at our son's first hair cut with someone giving him a sucker AFTER we said he has food allergies and cannot have one. That was the first time we realized most folks not affected by food allergies have little idea what you are talking about. Luckily he didn't know what it was, and so he held it in his hand thinking it was a toy. How did you learn about the blue raspberry allergy, through this experience or testing? Has he been skin or RAST tested?

Our son has had eczema since he was an infant also. We use Dove unscented bar (the liquid has fragrance to make it smell unscented...weird), CeraVe lotion morning and night, and Gentle Naturals Baby Eczema Cream on his face when needed.

Yes, we carry Benadryl with us everywhere. I used to keep a bottle in my purse at all times, then I started getting the single dose packs. My purse is much lighter!

I love flaxseed meal...it is wonderful! I cannot imagine if our son were allergic to the entire line-up of the big 8. We have to avoid most of them, but luckily we have milk and soy that we can utilize. Of course, I initially thought, wow, great, he can have cheese. Then I read all of the labels and how cheese is made and realized he actually cannot have most of it. There are a few brands that do not include the dyes and are not cultured with baby cow enzymes (beef allergy). It's amazing the things that one little ingredient can pop up in. I never really thought about how gelatin is made either...by boiling cow horns, hooves, etc. to extract the gel like properties from them that make them hard. So, no Jell-o or even plain gelatin that some wheat free recipes call for...I recently bought some agar agar (a seaweed) to try at some point in its place.


Garlic is another hard one to avoid. Tough finding any condiment that doesn't have it in it. I had been giving my son those little Gerber turkey sticks for the longest time, thinking he must be ok w/ garlic, and then one night I sauteed some rice pasta in butter, garlic, etc. He just started pulling at his tongue and welts came up all over his face...then I put together that it was the garlic. I removed the turkey sticks from his diet and his face cleared of the nagging eczema that I could not get to go away on his cheeks for the longest time. Lots and lots of trial and error!



Are you able to use xanthan gum in baking? I read that it is a bacteria that is cultured from corn, but I'm not sure if that means folks w/ corn allergy cannot tolerate it. Do you know if your son is allergic to barley or rye? I just bought bags of each to test on our son...itchy hives popped up with both. I later read that they are more likely allergens for folks allergic to wheat. I met a lady on Facebook who mailed me all of her allergy friendly cookbooks as her sons each outgrew their allergies at ages 5 and 6...she used a lot of barley in her cooking even though one of her sons was wheat allergic, so I thought I would at least give it a shot. Holding off for now since he had a skin reaction and a runny nose.



Yes, I make it over to Earth Fare now and then. We also have the Natural Foods Market in JC. I have found a few things that are safe for my son. Many of the road blocks we run into with the allergy friendly health foods are with our son's allergens that are outside of the scope of the big 8. For cereal I like the Erwehon Crispy Brown Rice (no salt added)...it's just like Rice Krispies (I don't remember why, but our son cannot have the real RK's). Not sure if your son is eating things of this texture yet, but Ian's has a few frozen items that are free of the major allergens. My son loves the Alphatots, french fries in the shape of letters. They actually taste similar to McDonald's fries to me. I haven't been able to acquire a taste for the rice noodles yet...our son used to really love them in mac-n-cheese but seems to gag on them now...guess it's the texture.



I have found a wonderful bread recipe at http://www.glutenfre.../#comment-16198 but if your son cannot have corn, then a couple of the ingredients would have to be substituted with alternate flours. I use potato starch in place of the masa harina, but I do include the corn starch. You could probably sub potato starch in place of corn starch and find something else for the masa harina. I read through the comments a long time ago and remember folks suggesting subs for the soy and corn flours. The bread is really great...as good as regular white wheat bread in my opinion.



Funny aside (as in ironic rather than actually humorous)...we have two dogs. One has eczema and is on allergy food...they both are on allergy friendly food as it is too difficult to feed two dogs two different dog foods. As tough as it has been and still is for us to find remedies for our poor dog's skin, his allergies have made our choice of dog food safe for our son to be around. So no worries with the dogs licking him, or if he wants to feed them a treat. Everything happens for a reason, I suppose!



It's so wonderful meeting you on here! Would love to chat and share brainstorms and/or war stories...is there a private chat function (I'm new)?

I kept meaning to reply but never had time.

On my son : Most of his allergies are GI reactions, he will scream for hours and have issues for days if he ingests any thing he isn't supposed to. It was really had at first but has gotten easier and now it is dare I say "normal". HE was diagnosed with a Milk Soy Protein Intolerance at about 5 weeks old after he went from being 8.5 lbs at birth to 7.5 lbs at a month old. He always had a rash on his face till we stated him on Neocate, which he is still on.
His worst reactions are to corn, wheat (all gluten), diary and soy. He will scream for hours, his belly gets distended and he will throw up and than have acid poop that eats his butt till it bleeds he will also flare with his reflux and eczema on his back, face and behind his ears. It is horrid. We recently went to an allergist/immunologist at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, he diagnosed him with moderate/severe food a-typical food allergies, because he can eat some foods, but gets the bulk of his nutrition from the special formula.

It is hard to find stuff that is top 8 and corn free though luck for us rice based foods are readily available. One of our problems is that my son can only eat organic produce, he will react to a conventional apple, but can eat an organic one just fine. We can't do Xanthan Gum, unless it is non-corn based (very hard to find). I don't do much baking for him because we can only use rice flour (though I need to), but I do make him a lot of casseroles with homemade sauces. I am happy that my guy can eat Enjoy Life stuff, it has been such a blessing.

I love this site for recipes, http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/, I have only ever made the Pumpkin Muffins, but they were great!! I use the Rice pasta that comes in a bag (I can't recall the name and I am at work) but it cooks up great and I can't really tell a difference. DS loves the Erwehone Rice Twice. I soak it in rice milk and he gobbles it up. Wal-Mart on the parkway in Bristol sells it really cheap, in fact they have such a great selection and prices on stuff that I drive down there all the time and I live/work in Abingdon.

Too funny about your dog, I have one that has GI issues like DS and has bad stomach issues if he eats anything other than his food or special biscuits.

Have they told you if they expect your little guy to out grown any of these? The Dr in Md said it would be kindergarten before we try gluten and he would be 7-8 before we tried milk/soy. We are hoping he will out grown corn soon, but it is very promising right now.

Not sure about private chats, though I know we can private message.

[JCHue]

Oh my...I cannot really say with certainty all foods which my son has GI reactions to because he really never was exposed to too many things before I had him tested for a select few foods and then we slowed introducing foods down tremendously. There are still so many basic foods he's never even had before. He had skin and GI reaction to the beef, though. I think he was around a year old when this happened. I stopped giving it to him, even though we were really early in the process and didn't know he had food alelrgies yet...I was just starting to suspect it, and that really kind of confirmed for me that we needed to get him to an allergist. It was so awful because he was so young he couldn't understand what was happening, and couldn't really communicate to us what was going on. We knew it was something because you really cannot mistake a GI reaction for anything other than what it is! The skin reactions were more tricky because he had eczema anyway...the food journal helped a lot, though.

He had the "chemcial burn" raw diaper rashes that caused him to scream and winse in anticipation of it being touched/cleaned, but I don't think ever to the point of bleeding. Your poor little guy! One of his worst rashes ever was actually to cantelope, but I don't know if that was due to an allergy...I read that melons just have a tendancy to cause bad diaper rashes in some kids, allergic or not.

We've really only expanded his diet in the last probably 6 months beyond very few, simple whole foods, maybe a little longer. We continued the hypoallergenic formula until we got a few items from different food groups into his diet. Back then, I started out like you with a lot of rice based items. We were lucky too that he tested negative to oats, so discovering oat flour was a big help.

What are the 12 foods that your son can eat? I may have some ideas I can share based on the things we started out with.

Can he do oats? I have read conflicting reports as to whether they truly include gluten, or are just sometimes contaminated with other gluten containing grains. I have seen some oats that specifically say "gluten free" on their labels.

My son has only experienced sandwich bread and pizza in the last couple of weeks. I finally tried xanthan gum and yeast. Seems to be going ok so far. I've made other breads without xanthan that have turned out well, but after I tried sandwich bread a couple of times where the dough turned out like soup, I decided to give xanthan a try. When I initially learned of the food allergies, I found a few charts online listing most/least allergic foods in order, and so we are putting those that are more likely to be allergens at the very back of our list to try. There are still many, many foods he has never even eaten. I also try to bump those foods w/ the most benefit nutritionally to the top of the list to try. It just takes a very long time to test even one food. It isn't as bad now that his eczema has tapered off a bit...when he had more eczema, it was tough to know if he was broken out due to the environment or food.

Yes, the Erwehon Rice Twice is really good. That was the first one we tried. My son gets quite a bit of sugar from other things, so I decided to scale back to the plain crisy cereal, mixed with Arrowhead Mills puffed rice (comes in a bag, Ingles sells it)...cheaper also. I just bought some Enjoy Life rice cereal this weekend...it looks like it would be really good heated in milk (or rice milk). My son liked that it was something new, and it's really crunchy. Thinking it would make a good pie crust. He doesn't eat his cereal in milk yet. I suppose because he had plain whole foods initially that it could be the reason behind him not liking his foods mixed with anything...doesn't want his foods to touch each other either.

We do a lot of organic also. Strangely with avocado, he does ok with organic but not regular. I read that they are one of the least chemically treated produce items, but for whatever reason, they cause a rash when not organic. There are some non-organic foods that work for us, but for the mostpart, my son's foods are organic (and expensive). We do organic whole milk...would love to change over to 2% but after emaililng the company for the origin of the Vit. A Palmatate, I didn't really have a solid answer as to whether it came from fish or even from one of the veggies on his allergy list. So, decided to be safer than sorry. Another interesting thing with the avocado and also apples is that they break him out and cause diaper rash during pollen season. Something to do with cross-reactivity.

Our allergist (Phillip Jones - The Allergy, Asthma & Sinus Center in Johnson City) did say with most of the foods that tested positive for our son, it is highly likely that he will outgrow them. He did say he expected him to have more environmental allergies as he gets older. I have read that egg is very common as an infant allergen and is almost always outgrown, same with milk. I have read conflicting reports with wheat...and of course, peanuts, tree nuts and fish are not as likely to be outgrown. The lady I met on FB had a son to outgrow the peanut allergy, so it does happen.

It's a lot to wrap your mind around, especially initially, but it does get easier, or more "normal" feeling. Another question...do you allow anyone to watch your son, or allow him in daycare/pre-school setting? My husband and I have never had anyone sit for our son...one of us that understands his allergies is with him at all times. I had always thought, prior to learning of the allergies that I would want him to attend pre-school, but now I am not so sure. It scares me to think someone may miss him having a reaction and not take timely or appropriate measures to help or save him. Horrible thoughts go through my mind about these sorts of things.

[heathermullikin]

I also have a 3 yr old with food allergies to wheat and dairy and I couldnt find anyone to do a birthday cake for him last year. Because I know how hard it is finding things that are good and allergen free for him I decided to start an in home bakery. With or Without Bakery and I do traditional goodies as well as allergen free menu including birthday cakes and many other treats. My little catch phrase is "because everybody deserves a little dessert". You can contact me through facebook my fan page is under with or without bakery. I also have a blog withorwithoutbakery@blogspot.com. If you have any question you can contact me either way or my phone info is 423-431-8574