wild at heart
04-04-2011, 22:15
Long story.. my poor LO is almost 11 mths and has battled reflux friom birth. Eventually after months and months and months of failure to thrive and regressed development and muscle wastage due to weight loss or plateau, she was put on neocate when gastroenterologist said that she was allergic to cows milk and soy. Np testing was done, but the idea was that her reactions and vomiting was so severe that it was more of an allergic reaction (I was breastfeeding and I had been dairy and soy free for about 4-5 mths but it made no difference to her weight gain or reflux).
She's been on neocate for almost 4 mths but starting on foods is very hard and she is around her two older brothers who try to give her foods, so i thought it may be worth actually looking at what she can and can't eat. The gastro's vioew is don't worry about the foods- just give her a taste but keep her on neocate for nutrition, but i find that she wants to eat for the satisfaction feeling of feeling full and is more able to sleep if she has had some food as well as her bottle. Besides, at some point she will need to eat something rather than synthetic formula.
So last Tues we had an appt at an allergy place (a one stop allergy palce just opened in bris) as we are on the waiting list at the RCH allergist, Dr Peake. The Dr there is Dr Tye who just said test her for cows milk soy and egg- even though i excpressed concern about wheat (she had truied some coucous about 3 mths ago and she didn't cope well- screaming and crying afterwards). No reaction to the skin prick test. Dr still thinks allergic - but maybe growing out of it. He just said to challenge for soy eggs and dairy one at a time. That was it! He said that thdere would be no reasin to be concerned about wheat and that it was the trendy thing to stress over these days "like yeast and candida was in the 80s and 90s!".
Yesterday I did some reading that maybe the failure to react to the skin prick tests was because she doesn't have instantaneous results to those food if she injested them so she unlikely to have aln instant reaction on her skin- coukd that be right? I have also heard that sometimes SPT are not conclusive in babies under 18mths?
Anyway back to the point- we were encouraged to test her or challenge for wheat/gluten. Dr suggested we try her on durum wheat pasta (just a taste) or oats every day and then progress to more often. She went ok the two times we tried it (just a taste of pasta but I then tried her on a Heinz apple oatmeal breakfast jar as she had tasted it before, and i thought she was ok with it (No dairy just oats and apple- nothing except fruit and apple according to label, but that's not to say there is nothing else in there). That was y/day and all day she was really really really really bad. All day she was hiccuping, burping, constipated, crying and vomiting very badly. I am sure she was vomiting blood as her vomit was completely reddy dark brown in colour- like the colour of dark wood (she has vomited blood a lot of times but this was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay worse than ever before..). She has done two poos today and they are literally like black tar (think meconium but firmer- SORRY TMI)- the first was just poo but the second one was the same meconium type substance but with lots of mucous as well. I know that this means that yes she does have a bleed somewhere in her GI tract, but i don't know whether it is just "one of those things that happen" with reflux bubs.
Would you bother trying again in a few more days to ensure it was wheat? I am sure she has eaten nothing else new over the last few days.
We are going back to gastroenterologist in ten days- should I ask for a wheat allergy test with the hospital allergist when i can finally get in??
I know everyone will say to do failsafe but it's not as though she is even eating a full range of foods, so i can't even say that i know that she doesn't ahve any other issues with other foods, so if i cut out a whole lot of her food (which i would if i started FS as she is only eating limited veges and only limited potatoes due to constipation so there would be not much else that she can eat yet). I am too scarec to start on gluten free stuff as much has other things that she can't eat like soy or dairy (like the gluten free breads and stuff). And i think i still need to add plain foods one at a time but i want to give her some carbs apart from rice cakes/baby rice cereal and plain rice!
oooh what do i do? The allergist made me feel so stupid, like i was stressing ovcer nothing when her tests came back _ve but inside i knew that things weren't hunky dory with her and foodm otherwise she wouldn't ahve been sooo very sick as a baby. The allergist just said to have fun with foods but this is NOT fun!
has anyone been in this situation? any other advice for me apart from "have fun"?? :(
She's been on neocate for almost 4 mths but starting on foods is very hard and she is around her two older brothers who try to give her foods, so i thought it may be worth actually looking at what she can and can't eat. The gastro's vioew is don't worry about the foods- just give her a taste but keep her on neocate for nutrition, but i find that she wants to eat for the satisfaction feeling of feeling full and is more able to sleep if she has had some food as well as her bottle. Besides, at some point she will need to eat something rather than synthetic formula.
So last Tues we had an appt at an allergy place (a one stop allergy palce just opened in bris) as we are on the waiting list at the RCH allergist, Dr Peake. The Dr there is Dr Tye who just said test her for cows milk soy and egg- even though i excpressed concern about wheat (she had truied some coucous about 3 mths ago and she didn't cope well- screaming and crying afterwards). No reaction to the skin prick test. Dr still thinks allergic - but maybe growing out of it. He just said to challenge for soy eggs and dairy one at a time. That was it! He said that thdere would be no reasin to be concerned about wheat and that it was the trendy thing to stress over these days "like yeast and candida was in the 80s and 90s!".
Yesterday I did some reading that maybe the failure to react to the skin prick tests was because she doesn't have instantaneous results to those food if she injested them so she unlikely to have aln instant reaction on her skin- coukd that be right? I have also heard that sometimes SPT are not conclusive in babies under 18mths?
Anyway back to the point- we were encouraged to test her or challenge for wheat/gluten. Dr suggested we try her on durum wheat pasta (just a taste) or oats every day and then progress to more often. She went ok the two times we tried it (just a taste of pasta but I then tried her on a Heinz apple oatmeal breakfast jar as she had tasted it before, and i thought she was ok with it (No dairy just oats and apple- nothing except fruit and apple according to label, but that's not to say there is nothing else in there). That was y/day and all day she was really really really really bad. All day she was hiccuping, burping, constipated, crying and vomiting very badly. I am sure she was vomiting blood as her vomit was completely reddy dark brown in colour- like the colour of dark wood (she has vomited blood a lot of times but this was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay worse than ever before..). She has done two poos today and they are literally like black tar (think meconium but firmer- SORRY TMI)- the first was just poo but the second one was the same meconium type substance but with lots of mucous as well. I know that this means that yes she does have a bleed somewhere in her GI tract, but i don't know whether it is just "one of those things that happen" with reflux bubs.
Would you bother trying again in a few more days to ensure it was wheat? I am sure she has eaten nothing else new over the last few days.
We are going back to gastroenterologist in ten days- should I ask for a wheat allergy test with the hospital allergist when i can finally get in??
I know everyone will say to do failsafe but it's not as though she is even eating a full range of foods, so i can't even say that i know that she doesn't ahve any other issues with other foods, so if i cut out a whole lot of her food (which i would if i started FS as she is only eating limited veges and only limited potatoes due to constipation so there would be not much else that she can eat yet). I am too scarec to start on gluten free stuff as much has other things that she can't eat like soy or dairy (like the gluten free breads and stuff). And i think i still need to add plain foods one at a time but i want to give her some carbs apart from rice cakes/baby rice cereal and plain rice!
oooh what do i do? The allergist made me feel so stupid, like i was stressing ovcer nothing when her tests came back _ve but inside i knew that things weren't hunky dory with her and foodm otherwise she wouldn't ahve been sooo very sick as a baby. The allergist just said to have fun with foods but this is NOT fun!
has anyone been in this situation? any other advice for me apart from "have fun"?? :(