My daughter returns to school soon, and I have been motivated to continue testing the allergenic foods to see what she might be able to tolerate during the upcoming school year. Parents have a rotating schedule to bring snack for the class, so this is always a tough balancing act. Last year, I sent her with snacks and lunch every day, and it worked out mostly well.
Most parents in her class bring a snack heavy on dairy: cheese sticks in many flavors or those damned neon-colored and full of artificial ingredients Go-gurt tubes. Trying to explain gluten-free is a futile effort with some people, while with others they are simply amazing and really do “get it.”
Glutinous foods are definitely out. Miracle Girl’s behavior issues crop up within hours, and it ain’t pretty. We didn’t notice a significant change for Charming Boy, but my knee-jerk response was that it wasn’t worth keeping him on gluten long enough to see.
Egg seems fine for Miracle Girl, but Charming Boy still sprouts a skin rash and seems to become overly emotional and cranky. Dairy is our current food trial.
Miracle Girl appears to be fine with it (cheese and yogurt have been attempted in the past week), and Charming Boy sprouts a vicious face rash very quickly. So far, he’s only had one cheese stick and simply by accident at school, a small drinking yogurt. We were relieved that he didn’t get the loose stool symptom that he’d had previously with dairy, but he definitely bloomed with the face rash around his mouth each time.
We haven’t tried fluid milk products and I’m not sure I’m brave enough to try that yet, especially for the boy.
So, we are trying to decide if we continue to keep them both on the same diet (yes to eggs, no to gluten, possible yes to dairy; makes each feel like they have a partner when they each share the same foods), or possibly customize each diet to allow the foods that work for each body.
With only days left to the first day of school, we need to decide. And soon.
I am going to a new Chinese medicine clinic on Thursday, ad plan to ask if they can do pediatric acupressure; we would love to see if it can boost her focus and reduce her food allergy behavioral symptoms with these simple treatments.
A whole new year, ripe with possibilities. As excited as I was for the break summer time would bring from the whole intense school-year routine, I am just as grateful for the end of summer. While some things have changed, some of the things that I hoped would change, didn’t. C’est la vie, eh?
Rachel
August 25th, 2009
This is so curious to me as my husband and I were talking about dairy and in Europe, it is considered such an important part of young children’s diets. And allergies/rashes are almost unheard of over there from milk. I wonder if it is in the (over) production that we have here.
Anyway, I commend you on being so careful and taking the time to figure out what they can/cannot handle. Like you would do it any other way…