I am going to do a small series on my thoughts on food allergies. I am going to talk a little about how I figured out that Kason had food allergies and the signs up until it, what happened and what tests they did and what happened post diagnosis.. Like I said above this is not medical advice.. this is simply what we went through..
Part 1:
I had always thought that my Kason was going to be a one of a kind child. Shortly into my pregnancy I had tests run and it came out positive that he would either be down syndrome and or have a mental retardation of some sort.. After extensive testing he was found to be normal and a healthy baby. My pregnancy was complicated from the time I reached 11 weeks. With placenta Previa, the constant bleeds, and the constant labor pains I was constantly in and out of the hospital. I had him at 36 weeks and 5 days ( two days short of being term). He had no issues breathing, eating and keeping his temp high enough.. I think his allergies started the day he was born because of the antibiotics i was given shortly before his birth. I think back on all the articles i read before his birth about antibiotics and the newborn. Newborns have no intestinal flora.. With any antibiotic it crosses into the breast-milk of a mother and can pass onto a baby. What would have been a gut filled with good bacteria was now a gut filled with nothing allowing allergens that otherwise would have been blocked to enter and invade his tiny little body. He started to break out in eczema about the time he was 3 months old. Prior to that he was always fussy and spitting up. When he got to be about 6 months old he had to be on oral steroids and antibiotics constantly which I again think allowed his body not to fight off allergens correctly, instead allowing them to get worse. I feel like his body was too busy fighting off infection than to protect himself from having an allergic reaction.
As he got older and closer to the time he was a year old I think that the eczema played into a lot why he had Microcytic anemia ( a lack of iron causing small and non working red blood cells) and went into failure to thrive. I do also thing the food allergies cause a leaky gut where he was not able to digest the breast-milk because too many allergens existed in my breast-milk. I do however blame the doctors some for not noticing his growth slowing and then stopping all together and not noticing the ailing condition of my son. After he had he breath holding spells we decided to get him help in the end ending up having him with a feeding tube.. Fast forward three months later the boy was on a high calorie diet, starting out on protein powders ( non dairy, soy) and high calorie lactose free milk. He would get vitamins through supplementation and then after awhile started to eat food ( he was about 15 months old at this time) . He was fully on a solid diet and eating foods that at the time I thought where safe. He did very well up until the age of three when he had his first allergic reaction. I had always though he had some sort of allergy to eggs and milk which was why I didn't feed him them. After his allergic reaction i finally talked to his doctor into tests..
To be continued in Part 2
