Our Crash Course into Food Allergy Life

The year 2015 will forever be engraved into my memory.  This is the year our son was diagnosed with multiple food allergies and our world was completely flipped up side down. Let's start from the beginning... looking back, the year 2014 our son started to show signs of having food allergies, but they started off so inconsistent we didn't put the two together. We would get random phone calls from our daycare provider saying he had thrown up and we needed to come pick him up.  We would get there and he would be fine...seriously no fever, no more upset stomach, and he was running around like his crazy self.  Later in the year his torso broke out in a rash, and it just would not heal.  We attributed this possibly being due to us changing laundry detergent, but even after returning to our normal detergent it would not go away. Soon after this he started to randomly throw up in the middle of the night. This is when we started to connect the dots and realize it had to be something he was eating. By now its the beginning of 2015, we have narrowed down to pizza and peanut butter causing the nausea.  With my little knowledge of food allergies, I knew peanuts were in pretty much everything, so it seemed the most logical to eliminate peanuts first. So we unknowingly substituted his peanut butter for the most deadly thing to him... Cashew Butter. And we served this to him for the first time at probably stupidest times of all... during an ice/snow storm. Pure Genius Move, I know! Like I said, we were new to this whole food allergy thing. After just a couple of bites, this previously starving boy was no longer hung, his lips began to swell, "Mommy I don't feel good," quickly followed by vomiting, and more vomiting. It was terrible! Now at this point, we probably should have called 911, but instead we called my mom to come watch our daughter so we could rush him to the ER. (In our defense, she only lives exactly 1 mile away) That 5 minute drive to the ER felt like a life time, and he was going to down hill fast. They rushed him to the back and gave him a small cocktail of medication and with in an hour he was looking much better. We were told he was obviously allergic to cashews, but to stay away from all tree nuts and peanuts and to see an allergist.

The allergist could not test him to confirm the allergies until it had been 6 weeks since his major reaction but in the meantime he was still having minor reactions to food despite us avoiding peanuts and tree nuts.  I kept a food log and noted any reactions he had so we could test for additional foods.  All in all he was tested (skin/scratch test and blood test) for about 30 different foods. He came back positive for peanuts, tree nuts, eggs and corn. Our allergist told us to avoid these foods, gave us some info on the top 8 allergies, and said see you in a year. Um, say what!?! That's it? Looking back, I feel like he should of offered some kind of support group or something, because I had no idea when I walked out of his office how much was going to change for us.  

We really didn't know anyone with food allergies, so the internet became my new best friend.  I spent my free time researching information on safe foods and foods to avoid with his combination of allergies. I sought out additional information and support from Facebook groups; by the way the corn allergy groups were a life safer.  Since corn is not one of the top 8 allergies, there is not as much information available. I quickly learned we needed to prepare an emergency action plan for his daycare provider, church volunteers who looked after him weekly each Sunday, and anyone else who would be taking care of him besides his dad and I. (I feel like this is something the allergist should have suggested, and probably helped us prepare) Grocery shopping has become a Saturday event, as we now shop at a total of 5 stores to be able to provide a wide variety of safe foods for our son.  We no longer go out to eat as a family because corn is in every affordable family friendly restaurant's food.  Our version of eating out as a family is a trip to Chick-Fil-A, which technically he shouldn't be able to eat.  But as our friend says "It's Jesus food, and we love Jesus so that's why he can it with no reaction." We now have to bring our own food for our son to any family gathering or party to ensure he has safe food.  But, we do eat healthier now than before (and I thought we were eating pretty healthy before). We are more aware of the ingredients we are eating. We have always cooked, but now we are cooking more from scratch and cleaner than before.  I have learned to bake cookies and cakes without eggs and they actually taste good. And we save money by not eating out. And probably the best out come is his behavior has done a complete 180.  We thought we just had a bad kid, no turns out corn turns him into a monster.  Literally. He used to bite, hit, and scratch for no reason. He would throw hour+ long tantrums. And he NEVER slept. Ever. His first 2.5 years were completely sleep deprived, which meant we were sleep deprived.  My husband and I split the night into 2 shifts so we could get some kind of sleep.  Either the lack of sleep or corn in general was also affecting his learning development.  About the time we started learning about his allergies, we also started working with ECI (Early Childhood Intervention); between eliminating his food allergies and him working with therapist 1 or 2 times a week he was just about back on track by his 3rd birthday.

A few quick tips to avoid some of our missteps...

1. Keep Children's Benadryl on hand at all times. 

We could have given our son Benadryl when had his major reaction to cashews.  In reality he really needed an epipen, but this would have helped some. We now keep this on hand in his backpack, my purse, the medicine cabinet, at his daycare and my parent's house (we visit there weekly).

2. Keep a Food Diary.

If your child throws up unexplainably, particularly if its only once and not accompanied by other symptoms, write down what they have eaten that day and how long after they ate did they throw up.  If it happens multiple times you might be able to narrow down a culprit causing it.  This is how we were able to narrow down to pizza and peanut butter causing our son throwing up.

3. Familiarize Yourself with Symptoms to Food Allergies

FoodAllergy.org is a great place to start on educating yourself about food allergies and the possible symptoms. The only thing this site doesn't talk about is the behavioral symptoms that can be associated to food allergies.  Also food allergies can be associated to any food or food derivative.  Personally, I cannot have green tea, and my mom and youngest brother can not have black tea,as they gives us migraines.  We also have a friend who cannot corn syrup, and another who cannot have blue food dye because it causes behavioral issues.