Amygdalia's Blog

On living with food allergies

It never even occurred to me that my son could have food allergies.  After all, my daughters, picky though they were, never had any trouble.  Oh, naïve fool.  I’ve since learned that all types of allergic reactions are related, and that having one type in the family predisposes children to having any type.  With my father’s asthma, my eczema and MSG allergy (duh – it’s a FOOD!) and multiple environmental allergies on both sides of the family, it’s a wonder that neither of the girls have a food allergy.

I’d started suspecting something when he would finish a meal and have red all around his mouth.  But I never worried too much.  I just gave him a bit of Benadryl and he was fine.  It wasn’t until a string of reactions landed us in the emergency room that I really knew we had a problem.  I’d given him some yogurt for lunch, and he ended up with the red around his mouth.  I gave him some Benadryl, and then made the incredibly stupid mistake of offering him his first peanut butter cracker.  Within half an hour, he was shaking his head and wheezing.  Naïve me still thought it must be a reaction to something in the yogurt.  I was putting my money on nutmeg, since he’d had all of the other ingredients without having a reaction.

Fast forward a month, to our follow-up visit with the allergist.  You could have knocked me over with a feather when the allergist told me he tested positive to dairy, egg, peanut, wheat, and soy!  The wheat and soy were mild, and he didn’t recommend we remove them from his diet.  The rest we needed to eliminate completely.  He then proceeded to #1 – make me lose any faith or trust in him that I might have had, and #2 – alienate me completely.  First, he told me something that I knew to be untrue – “egg allergy is never fatal.”  Then he told me that it was his opinion that the increased push for women to breastfeed was the cause for the dramatic increase in food allergies over the past decade.  Don’t even try to go there, with me!  It was at that point that I decided I was never going to see this man again.

So, my son and I both had to learn a new way of eating.  (Here’s the part where you either gasp *gross!* or give me kudos – your choice!)  At 17 months, we were still nursing several times a day, and that wasn’t about to change.  Particularly since I now had to eliminate most of his favorite foods from his diet.  How could I take away his nummy-num, as well?  And he was going to need the nutrition and fats he wasn’t able to get from dairy. 

I went home feeling like I’d been ambushed.  I was totally lost.  I had no idea where to begin.  It took several weeks, but eventually I discovered many foods that were safe for us to eat.  Reading labels was already second nature to me.  I have to avoid all MSG, and since I was a vegetarian for many years I have always read labels for meat products.  I am so thankful for all the support I got during that time.  I started experimenting and having a great time doing it!  This past holiday season, all of my baking was dairy, egg, and nut free.  And tasty!  I’ve learned so much about food allergies, nursing with food allergies, nursing to avoid food allergies. 

By age 2, my son would point to things in the pantry and say “I can’t have that.  It has dairy milk in it that I can’t have.”  Or “I can’t touch that because it might have peanut butter on it that I’m allergic to.” 

The most difficult thing about living with food allergies is leaving the home.  It’s become quite simple to ensure his safety while we’re at home, but going out to restaurants, or even to others’ homes, can be a nightmare.  Trying to ensure that there were safe foods for him; trying to make sure no one else fed him or left something laying around.  The awkwardness that I felt increased over time.  I couldn’t go out with friends, without calling the restaurant in advance, asking the waiters a dozen questions.  When other extended nursing moms would probably have stopped advertising the fact, I could not. 

My daughters were totally lost as well.  I decided that the best way to keep my son safe was to remove all peanut products from the house.  Peanut butter was a staple of both their diets.  Suddenly, it was gone.  Buying a sandwich at school wasn’t an option, because they’d come home with it smeared on their clothing.  Nice, tidy children.  My younger daughter happily switched to sunflower seed butter, but the older wouldn’t have anything to do with it. 

The best thing about nursing a child with food allergies is . . . weight loss!  What I had not been able to do for myself, I found I was very easily able to do for him.  Not being able to eat cakes, or cookies, or ice cream, or most chocolates did wonders for my waistline.

We nursed through food allergies for 17 months, finally weaning on December 22, 2006.  I was incredibly nervous about weaning, for many reasons.  But my biggest concern was about starting to eat those foods again.  I decided I was going to continue to eat basically as I had been, but treat myself on occasion.  What I’ve discovered is that when I do treat myself, I regret it shortly thereafter!  After nearly a year and a half of not eating dairy and egg (peanuts and tree nuts aren’t as much of an issue) my body cannot tolerate them anymore.  It certainly makes sticking with the diet much simpler!