Here We Go Again...Kind Of

Splotchy face due to acne and eczema

As I mentioned in my previous post, I knew we were dealing with food allergies again when Cecilia was only a week old, but it took me 2.5 months to really get serious about them.  Seeing blood in your child's poop is a little scary.  Also, seeing unexplained hives on your child is no fun either.

Most of you know that I take lots of pictures of my girls.  I started documenting Cecilia's skin issues pretty early on.  I had often wondered if her skin was merely newborn acne and her erythema toxicum neonatorum, also known as a "newborn rash", or was it eczema and hives?  I now know that it was eczema and hives with some newborn acne thrown in.  Her pediatrician tried to tell me the hives were just part of the newborn rash, but when they continued to crop up well past the newborn stage, I was suspicious.

Hives I noticed after her bath, though I had been using
 the same body wash on her for months

More hives on her back

I removed all top 8 allergens from my diet, so that means I did without milk, soy, wheat, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish.  I also decided to give up oats and tomatoes since Genevieve had issues with them.  I didn't want to let go of chocolate, though I'm not a huge fan of it, but it seemed that it caused Cecilia to reflux pretty badly, just like her big sister.  After grocery shopping for my old stand by foods, the diet was a little easier to handle.  I ate gluten free brown rice cereal with fruit and coconut milk.  I ate various meats, rice, veggies, fruits, quinoa, and some other replacement items (like top 8 free snack bars and cookies by Enjoy Life).

One morning I ate a gluten free waffle with Sunbutter and banana for breakfast, and by that evening I had a gassy baby who kept spitting up.  Then she had a mucousy poop that smelled like acid.  Uh oh. What was it?  The Sunbutter?  Something in the waffle?  I had suspected flaxseed when I used it in some cookies as an egg replacer, so maybe that was it.  I hate all of the detective work! The next morning, Cecilia had two more disgusting diapers.  I have pictures if anyone wants to see, but I will spare you by not posting them. Do you know what it's like to be afraid to eat and paranoid that everything is going to hurt your baby? It's pretty miserable.

By the time Cecilia was around 5 months old, I felt as though I hadn't figured much out.  Her symptoms were more difficult to read than Genevieve's, and I was having trouble connecting the dots.  I suspected rice and corn, so I decided to eliminate them.  Not too long later I thought, "Nah.  It can't be rice."  I added it back in.  One day I had rice cereal for breakfast, two cookies made with rice flour, and rice cereal for dinner (busy day).  That night, I had a miserable baby with disgusting poops the following morning.  I went and looked at the ingredients of the gluten free waffles I had eaten that produced similar stools from Cecilia, and there were about 3 or 4 different rice ingredients including rice flour and rice bran.  I guess it could be rice.

We also continued to deal with skin issues, and I was having trouble linking her eczema outbreaks to anything in particular.  I really should have kept a more thorough log, but I struggled to do anything other than taking care of the girls.

At one point I even began to suspect garlic but again thought that was silly.  I tried to eliminate it, but it is in so many things.  One day, I shared some roasted potatoes with Cecilia.  They had a little salt, pepper, and garlic powder on them.  I actually wiped one off and gave it to her to eat.  Within seconds of eating it, she had a tiny hive on her face.  Maybe I wasn't crazy to suspect garlic.  The next morning, I made more potatoes cooked only in olive oil.  No hives.  Great.  It's probably the garlic, I thought.  Do you know how much stuff has garlic?!

Tiny face hive

In an effort to shorten this post, I will condense my detective work.  At nine months, Cecilia had skin prick allergy testing done.  They numbered her little back, placed food/animal serum at each number, and then scratched her skin.  After about 15 minutes, they read the results.  The large hive in the picture is histamine.  They are looking for the other ones to be as big or bigger for a positive result, however, according to my research, hives are often much smaller in children under age one.  The results must be interpreted a little differently, which I don't think happened for Cecilia.  It's hard to see from my pictures, but she received a weak positive result for garlic and rice.  I think a few others looked positive as well (avocado, soy, wheat), but they weren't according to the test.

White dot = histamine
Blue dot = rice
Orange dot = garlic

I continued to avoid the suspected foods to give myself time to adjust to a garlic and rice free lifestyle.  Once I got to a place of relative comfort, I would start adding back foods to test for a reaction. I added a little onion powder to some sweet potatoes, and Cecilia started developing a hivey rash on her chin and neck.  I gave her plain sweet potatoes the next morning, and there was no rash. Onions and garlic are related, so it's no surprise that she may have issues with onions too. Okay, onions are in even more things than garlic!  The hard part is that food labels don't have to list garlic or onions, and when you contact companies to find out if their "spices" and "natural flavors" contain either of these two, they can tell you that it's a trade secret.   

Hives/eczema on her chin and neck after eating sweet potatoes w/ onion powder

Another view that is apparently really hard to see because it's a phone pic

Two weeks after allergy testing, this happened.  Guess what caused it?  Peaches.  We gave her Benadryl and put her in the bath.

Hives on her face, neck, torso, arms, and legs

She kept rubbing her eyes in the bath

The next morning, this was my poor baby. 

Eczema flare

Genevieve never had a reaction this bad, and Genevieve never had eczema as a baby.  This was new territory for me.  G did get similar hives when she ate eggs, but they never progressed beyond around her mouth and some on her torso.  This was a bit scary for me.  I do feel pretty confident that I need not worry about anaphylaxis, but I can't be 100% certain.  

Cecilia never spits up anymore, unless she is reacting to something.  At that point, it's usually the first sign.  It's typically pools of spit up throughout the day as well as lots of silent reflux (acid that comes up but is swallowed back down).  

spit up all over a shirt that was on the ground

Now that Cecilia is one and is at a relatively stable place with her allergies/symptoms, I am doing food trials.  I started with dairy because I was never really sure it was an issue.  So far, so good.  She does have a few tiny patches of eczema on her torso that I don't think were there before I introduced dairy into our diets, but for now, I am just keeping an eye on them.  I have seen no other symptoms, so that gives me much hope.  I think next, I will trial eggs and then wheat.  Wish me luck!!  Here's to hoping that I don't over indulge in these once forbidden foods and gain 15 pounds in 6 weeks like I did when Genevieve grew out of her allergies.

It's Been Awhile

Our family when Cecilia was just one week old

Our family at Cecilia's 1st birthday party - 2 days shy of turning one.

Well hello there blog.  I almost forgot about you.  Okay, not really.  I just haven't made time for you.  Sorry.  To say that this past year has been busy would be an understatement.  I would describe the past year as hectic, overwhelming, crazy, joyous, beautiful, silly, and pretty amazing.

I am so glad J and I decided to add a second child to our family.  I know God has really been making me grow and stretch, and most of the time I am thankful for that.  Other times, I wish he would grow me and stretch me in different ways, but He knows what I need more than I know what I need.

Fussy baby

When Cecilia was exactly one week old, I knew we would be dealing with food allergies again.  We had her newborn photo shoot, and she WOULD NOT stay asleep.  She didn't like being moved and messed with.  She also wouldn't eat well and just continued fussing/crying and passing gas.  By the end of the 4+ hours of the shoot, I was crying.  I was disappointed that we didn't accomplish a lot, and I was actually embarrassed that I didn't have things under control.  Our amazing photographer, Doni with Live Loved Photography, asked us to come back the following day to try again.  She didn't want Cecilia to beat her!  I am very grateful because she really did get some sweet shots of Cecilia, but I am not surprised because Doni is truly a baby whisperer and photographic artist.

At this point I was dabbling in being dairy and soy free, but it was proving to be a challenge with meeting my nutritional needs and taking care of two girls.  J didn't feel as though Cecilia's issues were diet related, and because I wanted to believe that too, I continued to eat whatever. Her poop didn't seem too abnormal (like Genevieve's was), but the fact that she refluxed so badly she would gag and choke concerned me.  I know babies spit up, but not like this. This wasn't okay with me.  We tried Zantac for 6 days, which seemed to help some, but it also made Cecilia have insomnia.  This too was not okay!  We had enough trouble getting and keeping her asleep!

Again, I tried a total elimination diet like I did with Genevieve, but after four days I was starving, literally.  I just didn't know how I would do this having to make everything from scratch and having two girls with very different needs to care for.  I remember the moment I caved.  We were out at the mall for some reason (hoping Cecilia would sleep on the drive since she'd been up almost all day, but she didn't).  We were all hungry, and I got a delicious sandwich from Paradise Bakery.  It was so good, and I felt so guilty.  It would take hours or nursing, rocking, bouncing, and patting to get Cecilia to sleep.  Sometimes she'd sleep for 3 hours, and other times she'd sleep for 3 minutes. Sometimes she'd let me lay her down, and other times I had to hold her for her naps.  It really depended on how bad her reflux and gas were.

Thanksgiving was fast approaching, and I was stressed about what we would do.  How in the world was I going to make a nice meal for my family with a colicky baby?  There was no way I could invite my family over because I was completely unprepared to host.  I sometimes couldn't even shower.  I was also completely unprepared to go out of town with both girls.  Enter my sweet friend Dina.  She invited us over to her house with her family, so I accepted her invitation.  We went and all had a great time, staying well past everyone else went home to just hang out and visit.  It was a nice, stress free holiday.  The next few days with Cecila weren't great, but what else was new?

One of the bestest friends a girl can have.  I love ya Dina!

J had to go out of town on business for a few days after this, so my life was about to get a little harder.  I don't remember much from this except one night I could not get Cecilia to calm down and sleep.  I thought I'd bring her and Genevieve out for a drive, which sometimes worked.  I figured we'd drive through somewhere and grab dinner while Cecilia slept a little bit.  Nope.  She screamed nearly the entire 30 minutes we drove around, so I drove us home and ordered pizza.  I loved every second of eating that pizza except feeling guilty again because I knew there was some food hurting my sweet girl.  Everything changed the next day.

I changed Cecilia's poopy diaper, and I noticed a few tiny red specks in her poop.  I knew it was blood since she was only 2.5 months old and exclusively breastfed.  When I continued to see specks of red in every poopy diaper, that was all I needed to completely change my diet.  I knew I needed to heal her little gut, and nothing was going to get in my way this time.  More on that in the next installment.  Maybe I'll finish it before another year passes.