Well, we got some new allergy test results back for Levi Thursday afternoon. They were not good :( It seems he has developed many more new allergies/sensitivities. Seeing the long list of items makes me feel thankful that he has not been more ill and/or lost weight.
We now know that he is very sensitive to garlic, gluten, wheat (and all other flour with gluten), sunflower seed/oil (no more sunbutter for him), soy, dairy (we already knew that), peanut and Cashew. These foods can cause an immediate or delayed food reaction from him (vomiting or diarrhea). As if that list isn't bad enough, he is also sensitive to pear, tomato, carrot, broccoli, watermelon, orange, eggplant and asparagus. For 7 days we will also be off of avocado, cantaloupe, celery, coconut, cucumber, grapes, lemon, and olive. Then I can slowly introduce them back into his diet to see if they cause any symptoms. These findings are from the 85 items his blood was tested for.
The hardest of these is to take out the gluten and soy. We were already off dairy but soy is used in lots of "allergy safe" foods. Also, he was not allergic to soy or wheat when we tested in November so it is bad news that he is developing new allergies. We will be seeing a dietician soon and discussing a rotation diet with her -- eating each food only once every three days or so.
We are very thankful to at least know what we are dealing with and that he can still eat rice, potato and corn (useful in lots of Gluten Free products). I went to Fred Meyers yesterday (they have a good natural foods/allergy safe section and spent several hours reading ingredients on items and picking some to try. Today Levi had pancakes made from a gluten free mix and some corn oil and egg replacement. He really enjoyed them , eating an unheard of amount for my tiny boy -- probably about 6 medium sized pancakes. I guess he is making up for yesterday (spent the day and Thursday night throwing up again).
It can take several months to see the full outcome of getting off of gluten but we are looking forward to seeing this pay off. In the meantime, the DR. at Children's wants to do an Upper GI X-ray and for him to take Zantac. We may or may not do that, seeing as we just got this info back on the afternoon we saw her. (One day earlier and we could have used this info to discuss things with her !) We will be seeing Dr. Ranheim again in a few weeks and will discuss the results of Levi's tests with him.
I wanted to write this out once rather than describing the whole thing over and over, as it is a rather exhaustive list! Thank you again for your prayers and support. It means a great deal to both Kaleb and I!
Hope everyone is having a great weekend.
Joanna
