ALLERGIES!!!

Who knew that allergies would change our lives so drastically.  Allergies have never really been that big of deal for us.  Craig has had seasonal allergies most places we have lived but it has usually been short lived ...  UNTIL here!!  The seasonal allergies here have been miserable for Craig and Jace.  Enough so that after we had met our deductible he sought help from an allergist for relief.  We also made an appt. for Jace and Ty as well.  Ty has had raised bumps and a rash on his cheeks, arms, and legs since moving here too.  Craig's allergy test results were pretty significant.  He's allergic to the outdoors: grass, trees, weeds, cats, dogs, and dust mite.  Jace's was the most life changing... he's allergic to grass, trees, weeds, cats, dust mite, dairy and wheat.  Ty was allergic to dairy.  We ended up having the girls tested too since we were finding out our kids had food allergies.  Brooke was allergic to nothing and Jenni was allergic to dairy and is very sensitive to histamine.  Blah!!  The rest of November and December was a blur.  I read as much as I could to try and find good recipes and figure out how to deal with food allergies.  It's not fun,  I'll tell you that much.  Wheat is everywhere .. and if it doesn't have wheat it usually has dairy so finding options that were GFCF (Gluten free Casein free) was quite difficult.  I set up a pinterest account and pinned recipes.  Then came the grocery shopping changes ... trying to figure out what brand is best as an alternate butter and gluten free flour.  What was I going to make for dinner??  What can I put in the kids lunchboxes now that Jace can't have school lunch?  It was exhausting both physically and mentally because now I had to make everything from scratch so I was spending a lot of time in the kitchen and doing dishes.  At this same time I was taking a parenting class that encouraged us all to eliminate artificial dyes & preservatives from our kids diet as well because they cause behavior problems and can lead to allergies as well.  Blah!!

For the month of January we were on a strict elimination diet trying to figure out what was causing problems because Jace had been feeling sick for quite some time.  Mostly he was feeling lethargic or hyperactive, without a balance in between and his stomach hurt like he was going to vomit all the time.  I felt horrible and he missed a lot of school.  He would also be so frustrated that he would sometimes have violent outbursts where he would just lose control.  I wanted to help him but I didn't know how.  With the elimination diet we cut out everything but chicken, eggs, fish, nuts, fruits except for citrus, veggies, olive oil, coconut oil, rice milk, filtered water and herbal tea.  It was hard and I felt horrible for Jace.  Lunch at school was the most difficult for him because everyone else would be eating the things he loves but couldn't have anymore.  With an elimination diet you are suppose to cut out beef, pork, citrus, tomatoes, artificial flavors/dyes, preservatives, sugar, wheat, and dairy then when you hit a point where you are no longer suffering symptoms you add foods back in one at a time and see what triggers symptoms.  The problem was we never got to a point that he was symptom free.  His stomach still hurt all the time.  After a full month we realized that the chicken breasts I had been using had milk added.  I was so mad!  We tried again but weren't as strict and the symptoms still didn't go away completely.  I was so frustrated.

At that point I was studying up on histamine intolerance which is basically that your body gets overwhelmed with histamine from things you are allergic to which can be seasonal or not and you also can have a buildup of histamine from food.  When I put Jace on the histamine free diet his symptoms did mostly clear up but it wasn't healthy either because it was so restrictive ... all he could eat was a select few fruits and veggies.

We were about to take him to a gastro Dr. but his Pediatrician had us try 1/2 dose of the smallest Zantac acid reducer and that helped his stomach.  I also started him on a high quality allergy free multivitamin and he takes fish oil and probiotics.  He was also taking some olive leaf extract to help clear up any extra yeast/ parasites if there were any.  He seems to be on the mend.  We are more relaxed about his diet and even allow dairy and wheat occasionally when we go out to eat.  We are kind of at a stand still.  He's no longer reacting much to dairy and wheat anymore so I don't really know if he is still allergic or if we finally are healing up his gut enough that its less of a problem.  One thing I've noticed for sure is that if he has sugar without some kind of protein to balance it out or a lot of water to drink to filter it out his body can't tolerate it well and he goes into overdrive.  He does best if he is able to get some kind of physical activity, nutritious snack, and water every 2 hours and if we are helping to teach him to reduce his stress levels because that in turn lowers histamine as well.  I have still opted to cook GFCF at home as well as try to cut out as many artificial colors/flavors and preservatives as possible.  We have eggs on GF toast, GFCF german pancakes, or oatmeal with fruit and nuts for breakfast.  We have a lot of baked chicken, curries over rice, thai noodle dishes, nitrate free porks and grassfed beef with veggies and potatoes for dinner.  Lunch is usually lots of fruits & veggies with chips, hummus, or nutbutter.  I make a lot of air popped popcorn with coconut oil and sea salt to munch on throughout the day.  I'm learning and things are progressively getting easier.

Hopefully we can find the right balance to make ourselves healthy.  Ty still has a rash going on so that's what I'm trying to figure out next.  The pediatrician said to try 1/4 tsp of an antihistamine every night before bed so I'm going to start that right away.

I'm going to try and nurse Jenni as long as I can because that's what's healthiest for her.  It is hard though because I miss cheese, yogurt, butter, and chocolate a lot.  She doesn't sleep during the night and gets a rash if I have any of those things to eat.   I'll do it for her though.  :)

I'm interested to see if we move somewhere with less seasonal allergens if the kids health with improve.  Craig really wants to do an international transfer sometime in the future so I guess we'll figure it out then.  Until then we'll just keep truckin' along trying to figure it all out one piece at a time.