Advice/ recipes needed

[Guest guest]

Hi,

I recently joined this list and would like any advice or suggestions anyone

could offer. Here's " my story " and I'll try to keep it as abbreviated as

possible. (warning- it's still long!)

(This is about my son, since he has the most severe allergies, but my 5 yr old

daughter also had IGG and gluten reactions just in lower levels.)

My son, who turned three yrs old a few months ago, has multiple allergies and

according to his pediatrician and also my ND, a leaky gut. Even though I have

been intolerant to milk since birth (was on soy formula), for some reason I

CRAVED chocolate milk and ice cream while pregnant with him and through about 12

months of the 18 months I breastfed him. The weird thing is that during that

time milk didn't bother me at all so I really pigged out on it. Even before he

started solids, my son kept excema on his cheeks and bottom. Now I know it was

from the cow's milk he was getting while nursing. Other than that, there were

no problems till 5 months of age. He had his 4 mo. shots and about 2 weeks

later came down with croup and an ear infection. Being the dutiful mother, I

thought I was supposed to take him right over to his doctor (our old

pediatrician's office). The croup was still so severe even in daytime, right

there in the office they gave him a steroid shot, a breath

ing treatment and put him on amoxicillin and several days of prednisole. Yikes!

As I type that I feel so bad- if I knew then what I knew now, that would not

have happened. That was the beginnning of a series of non stop ear infections

that lasted till he was about a year old. At that time, I had read an article

that milk allergy can cause ear infections. I asked one of his old doctors

about that at a visit and she said, " Sure, try soy milk. " as she wrote a

prescription for zithromax and told me he'd have to have ear tubes if he had one

more infection. Well, I immediately cut out yogurt and pudding which he had

been eating since 7 months of age (side note- WHY do you always read don't give

your kid cow's milk till age one, but you can give yogurt at 7 months??) I had

also just started giving him chocolate milk in a cup about 11 months of age.

Also, at that time, the brief " honeymoon " for me of being able to tolerate milk

for once in my life abrubtly ended with milk once

again giving me stomach pain, my allergies resurfaced even worse than since a

child, so he was no longer getting cow's milk through my breast milk. Ear

infections cleared up right away! We kept him as milk free as possible.

Everything was fine for a few months then he started breaking out in hives to

soy milk. He kept a sniffy nose and constant " cold " . I asked another of the

old doctors at a visit and he said I could try rice milk if I wanted, but three

sentences later told me to give him ice cream for his sore throat (it was 4th of

July weekend). We switched to rice milk, but didn't avoid soy in foods- kept

margarine, fast food fries, etc. We started noticing very bad behavior and

biting and it was linked to soy. In particular, after Sonic French Fries, he

would get glassy eyed, very quiet, withdrawn, but mean and hateful acting.

Chocolate also caused problems according to my food diary I kept on him. So we

were soy free and dairy free until right before he turned

three in May. Rice milk had started breaking him out, so we had switched to

almond milk a few months earlier. I finally got up the nerve to switch

pediatricians then and she ran IGG/IGE tests and then a celiac panel on him.

His IGG test showed several reactions to Soy, Eggs, Wheat, Rye, Oats, Almonds,

Rice, Tomatoes, Bananas and other foods... and he had a Class III reaction to

Peanuts on the IGE test of a handful of foods.

A celiac test showed high gluten intolerance, (in 120's antigliadin markers,

when 30 plus is high) but negative to the other three markers. The doctor said

he was just gluten intolerant, not celiac, and she thought he had leaky gut.

She put him Ultra Clear Sustain to heal the leaky gut and told me to avoid his

highest reactions on the IGG and she'd see me in a year at his 4 yr old check

up! No further info!!

After taking out wheat, eggs and other high allergens, we had a bad few weeks

then it got better. Before then, my son limited himself to chicken noodle soup,

macaroni and cheese and toast/bread. Then all of a sudden he started liking

vegetables (some) and meat.

I even tried a low carb diet on him after reading the Fungus Link by Doug

Kauffman. The poor boy was getting limited fruit and extra meat at each meal.

He did not do well at all on this, so I dropped it and went back to eating lots

of fruit and less meat.

Recently, he had severe groin swelling, which they finally determined was a

reaction to a bug or spider bite. He still has swelling and my cousin, a RN,

says he has a hernia. We see a urologist in 2 weeks to find out. Anyway, after

the doctor, I took him to my naturopath, who has been so great helping me. She

checks a drop of your blood on a microscope hooked to a TV and shows you what's

going on inside your body. My son's blood showed a cellular parasite (there

were six individual ones I saw in that one drop of blood), a B12 deficiency, his

little blood cells were white in the middle from not absorbing nutrients in his

food, he had very high levels of uric acid in his blood, lots of putrified food

and he wasn't breaking down his fat. This was after being on digestive enzymes

since last October, plus vitamin, antioxident, and probiotic supplements from my

ND.

My ND put him on l. glutamine for leaky gut, B12, Cytolyse to flush out the uric

acid, VRM4 for the parasite and told me to give him enzymes every meal instead

of just at the evening meal. She also said to totally avoid meat since his body

was not processing it at all.

After all that, here's where I need advice. What are the hidden sources of meat

that I might not think of? What are some good nutrient dense, yet tasty foods

my kids would like? How can I sneak in more veggies? I'm not really worried

about protein as he is really overloaded with it at the moment.

Here's some things they already like:

Carrot, apple, pear and spinach juice in my green star juicer

cooked broccoli, green beans (if dipped in ketchup)

all types of fresh fruits (all berries, grapes, kiwi, plums, apples, etc.)

white potatoes in any form

baked sweet potatoes with maple sugar

Millet nuggets (chicken nuggets using leftover millet cereal instead of chicken

cucumber slices

tomatoes (but have to limit because of allergy)

quinoa/corn or brown rice pasta plain or in veggie soup

I have yet to be successful in getting them to eat celery or carrot sticks.

They don't like casseroles. My daughter likes chili beans or baked beans, but

my son won't touch a bean. They do love pancakes- I thought about making a

veggie fritter type food that would work for lunches. Any ideas for kid

friendly, soy free, dairy free, gluten free, egg free recipes or advice?

Thanks so much and sorry this was much longer than I intended!

Janet