Ella, 8 Months Old Lately, there seems to be a shift in thinking about food allergies and when to introduce certain foods into a child's diet. My daughter is five and when she was two the common advice that was handed out was that children should wait until age two before trying any kind of nut. Now research is indicating that EARLY introduction might be the best way to avoid food allergies.
We were also encouraged to breastfeed our daughter, because that is supposed to help minimize allergies. I breastfed Ella for a year. I did let her drink formula from time to time after about 10 months, just in case I was killed in a freak accident and unable to feed her. As it turned out, I had to have an emergency appendectomy and spent an entire week in the hospital. It was one week before her first birthday. Because of all of the drugs in my system, I had to force wean her. (It was a nightmare for me, and she barely seemed to notice). Thank God for the formula!
From six months on, her diet was heavy on wheat. Pasta, bagels, bread, crackers... the typical American diet!We gave her soy around that time, as well. We let her have eggs some time in that period and she hated them. Through it all, she had eczema on her the insides of her arms and behind her knees. I just thought she had dry skin.
Since we were trying to do everything by the book, we waited until her second birthday to let her sample nuts. We started with peanut butter. She didn't want any part of it. When she did put some in her mouth, there was no reaction. It seemed like a good sign. Then we let her have pesto or something with pine nuts, again no reaction other than her refusing to eat it. The turning point in our lives happened when we let her have a pistachio. It is a story that I have told a thousand times and it never gets easier to remember that day. She put a fraction of the nut into her mouth. She spit it out; screamed as if it were a burning jalapeno. Within seconds, she had hives all over her lips. Within a few minutes, her eyes were swollen shut. And then she started started having trouble breathing; it was textbook anaphylaxis. I was pregnant with my son at the time. And the hormones + the stress of the situation, kicked in. I drove her, like a maniac, to the ER. As soon as we got there, they ushered us in. She was given an IV and they administered antihistamines, epinephrine, and steroids. We remained there for several hours as we waited for the swelling to go down.
Two weeks later, we had her blood allergy tested for dozens of foods. We were shocked when we got the results... wheat, eggs, soy, all tree nuts, peanuts and sesame. She was highly allergic to all of these things. I cannot say why she did not react to the peanut butter or the pine nuts. But she clearly had been having some difficulty with the other things, as evidenced by her horrible skin rashes.
I am a bit baffled about this new research, from a personal stand point. We do not have a history of food allergies in our family. She had wheat as soon as she was able to eat (early introduction) and she is allergic to it. And we waited on the nuts (later introduction) and she is allergic to them. I am very curious about what the experiences of my readers were. You may want to also check out this article from Med India...
(Talk about an annoying title!)
Did you breastfeed/were you breastfed? When were the allergic foods first introduced? If you have a moment, I would love to hear your story. Either in the comments section or on my Facebook page...
5 comments:
I totally hear you. I'm totally confused by the new research too. I breastfed my son and by month 3 he was covered in hives, blistering hives. After months of lotions, creams,ect.. I stopped dairy in my diet. It helped 60% but he still had a major skin issue that would come and go. And his screams.Oh boy. Then an anaphlyaxis reaction at 11 months old (right there with ya) and the tests came back very high for dairy, soy, tree nuts, peanuts and (more currently) wheat. It made so much sense. His blistering hives was from my breastmilk. I gave him very little solid food- other than rice and veggies/fruit. All those gallons of almond milk and peanuts I was consuming was an early introduction and still my son has multiple allergies. When I think that my milk was hurting him. I weep a little inside. mama guilt.
I love your blog. My son is only 20 months now, and to learn from other moms who are a little farther into the food allergy journey is priceless. Thank you for sharing your story. I am listening.
My oldest son is our allergy kid. He's allergic to dairy, eggs, and peanuts. Dairy is the only food he's ever had a severe reaction to (ie ER visit reaction!) yet eggs is his highest tested level. I breastfed him until 6 months old and then formula fed (regular Good Start) from 6-12months. We introduced baby cereal at 4 months and then slowly introduced the other foods. It wasn't until he was 10 months that we tried cheese and yogurt. That's when his reactions begun, thankfully just hives around the mouth. It was shocking to discover he had food allergies, especially to dairy. He never reacted in any way, no hives, no excema, no upset belly, no blood in the diaper, NOTHING prior to those hives. I ate anything in my diet while BF and he got regular formula (with no issue even after his cheese/yogurt reaction). We introduced peanuts after a year and he only had a mild skin hives reaction to them after weeks and weeks of eating it with no reaction. It still tests as his lowest allergy.
My youngest son I breast fed (I avoided peanuts during pregnancy and nursing, consumed less dairy and egg during both as well) until 9 months, he received formula (regular Similac) off and on during that time too. I weaned at 9 months and he was put on Similac full time. We delayed solids completely until 6 months and waited until 11 months to do any cheese or yogurt. He has never had nuts/peanut products. He is 16 months old and so far shows no signs of any allergies. I'm so torn on when to introduce nuts but I think I'll wait until 2-3 years old since I found that introducing it at 1 year didn't prevent an allergy in my oldest, nor in my niece (who did have a history of excema). We had no history of food allergies in our family so my son and my niece having them are a shock to us all.
This is so hard to decide. One day a food is good, then next it's not. One day they say start later, then, start early. Not just with nuts but other foods as well. I breastfed my daughter for 6 months. I did not eat nuts while pregnant or nursing. I held off on giving her any nuts/nut products. Because of everything I read said wait until atleast 2. I myself do not like peanut butter, so it wasn't a food that I thought was important anyway. So, when she was 3 we were at a party and pistachio cake was being served (I thought was that's very different). She did not really like any of the food at the party, so I let her have some cake. Whoa, little did I know what was in store for us that day. Her reaction did not happen right away. We had been home for atleast an hour, when she was swelling up and covered in hives and comletetly lethargic and unrecognizable. It was coming on so quick at that point and it was baffling, a quick call back from the doctor and several doses of benadryl through the night helped lessen the symptons, but it took a few days, before she looked like herself again.
I remember when my sister in law was pregnant with my niece. I visited her the day before she was born and my SIL was eating peanut butter with bananas and I thought, Oh no, you're not supposed to have that when pregnant. My SIL gave my niece pb at 1 yr. Well she does not have food allergies. figure. I have friends who did not breastfeed and gave their kids pb early and no problems.
So ofcourse we got tested and the pistachio/cashew was high, with positive results to some of the other tree nuts. However, Peanuts (atleast on the initial blood test) were negative, but on skin as high as pistachio/cashew.
Linda
I came across your blog via Twitter because I saw that you're in LA, I'm in Alaska but we took our older son down there (brother&family live in SLO) to Dr Jing at TCM Healing Center. Were having amazing results- life changing. His eczema was so bad, head to toe, up every hour itching, unable to go anywhere/do anything during the day, it didn't matter what we did with his diet. He was hardly able to eat anything and his diet is still limited but he's starting to get foods back. He takes herbs twice a day, we do a massage on him, he had acupuncture at the clinic and we have a topical herbal ointment to put on any flare ups. It's been three months and he hasn't had any antihistamines since then or hydrocortisone and only one staph infection two months ago (these were regular occurences). I know everyone responds to different treatments but since you live in the area of the clinic,
I'd highly recommend at least one appointment with her.
As for foods, I breastfed Ry til he was 18 months, introduced eggs and milk at 1, but he refused to eat it, ate peanuts fine at 18 months but then they showed up on allergy testing at 20 months. None of it makes sense. No one ever talks about exposure via breastmilk, if you can eliminate dairy and see a rash go away in your baby, then how is that not early exposure? Confusing...our second son is 16 months and he's on the same diet as Ry- glutenfree, dairyfree, eggfree, nutfree and so much more!
I'm curious if anyone elses children were on antibiotics? Genetics does play a role in our situation,
but Rys skin was fine until a couple months after broad spectrum antibiotics, then hospitalized at 18 months for staph and tons of allergies came up after that. I think environment played a big role in addition to his genes. This comment is getting too long but I have our story on my blog. I'm g lad I found yours, always nice to know your not alone! Again, go to Dr Jing if you can! Breanna at Allergic Adventures
I came across your blog via Twitter because I saw that you're in LA, I'm in Alaska but we took our older son down there (brother&family live in SLO) to Dr Jing at TCM Healing Center. Were having amazing results- life changing. His eczema was so bad, head to toe, up every hour itching, unable to go anywhere/do anything during the day, it didn't matter what we did with his diet. He was hardly able to eat anything and his diet is still limited but he's starting to get foods back. He takes herbs twice a day, we do a massage on him, he had acupuncture at the clinic and we have a topical herbal ointment to put on any flareups. It's been three months and he hasn't had any antihistamines since then or hydrocortisone and only one staph infection two months ago (these were regular occurences). I know everyone responds to different treatments but since you live in the area of the clinic,
I'd highly recommend at least one appointment with her.
As for foods, I breastfed Ry til he was 18 months, introduced eggs and milk at 1, but he refused to eat it, ate peanuts fine at 18 months but then they showed up on allergy testing at 20 months. None of it makes sense. No one ever talks about exposure via breastmilk, if you can eliminate dairy and see a rash go away in your baby, then how is that not early exposure? Confusing...our second son is 16 months and he's on the same diet as Ry- glutenfree, dairyfree, eggfree, nutfree and so much more!
I'm curious if anyone elses children were on antibiotics? Genetics does play a role in our situation,
but Rys skin was fine until a couple months after broad spectrum antibiotics, then hospitalized at 18 months for staph and tons of allergies came up after that. I think environment played a big role in addition to his genes. This comment is getting too long but I have our story on my blog. I'm g lad I found yours, always nice to know your not alone! Again, go to Dr Jing if you can! Breanna at Allergic Adventures
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