Overwhelmed

It all started a few weeks ago. Well, really probably 6 weeks ago...around the time that Ike hit. Kyle started having major blow out diapers that were more disgusting than anything I have ever witnessed. The strange thing was, they weren't consistent. He would have one and then go three or four days before the next one. At first I thought he was sick, but since they weren't back to back I thought maybe he had an allergy. So, being the proactive mom I started to keep a food diary. That was funny in and of itself because it made me realize how terribly he actually eats. I decided then and there that he MUST take a vitamin because he is obviously not getting what he needs from his foods. The diarrhea seemed to go away so I stopped the food diary.

A week later, I gave him scrambled eggs and boom, it was back. I made an appointment with the pediatrician and left there thinking he had a parasite. She had convinced me that if he had shown no signs of an allergy to eggs before that it most likely wasn't a food allergy. I told her that I thought he was also lactose intolerant so I had taken him off milk back in February. He has had lactaid or soy milk since then. She told me to take 3 stool samples - GROSS!!! - to check for the parasite and then come back for some labwork so they could test for food allergies. If the blood work came back negative we'd be all clear otherwise we'd go from there.

I finally got a call today from the nurse with the lab results (after 10 days). My picky eater who lives on peanut butter sandwiches has a slight allergy to peanuts. That was a shock, but it's manageable, right? Cutting out peanut butter isn't really that difficult these days. So then she goes on to tell me that he's also allergic to eggs (saw that one coming) and WHEAT! I started laughing. Obviously not the appropriate response, but hello? Wheat is in EVERYTHING. Eggs are in a lot of things too, but when she said wheat I was stunned. So she said, cut those out of his diet and if the diarrhea continues then we'll send him to an allergist.

As all of this was churning around in my head I decided to go stand in the pantry and see exactly what we were facing. I pulled out the Teddy Grahams, Goldfish, Club Crackers, breakfast bars, pasta, etc. I grabbed about 6 boxes of his everyday foods and brought them to Derek and said, look at all of this, he can't eat ANY of it. Derek took the kids outside to play and I got on the internet to get a better idea of it all. I now have a three page list of what is allowed and what is not allowed...and that's just the wheat list. It's a good thing Kyle loves fruit because that's about the only thing left on his picky diet than he is now allowed to eat. Oh and we did find Kix in the pantry so he'll be having that for breakfast tomorrow. No wheat in that! I got so overwhelmed trying to figure out what to feed him for dinner that I started to cry. He had a turkey hotdog (all turkey, no fillers - apparently the ones that aren't 100% meat have wheat in them too), grapes and a slice of cheese.

I know that people have been through this and have figured it all out, but if you have any advice or can point me in a direction, please do! Are any of you reading this dealing with major food allergies too?

There is some good news. He's not allergic to milk.

Oh and did you know that there is wheat in chocolate?