Welcome to my blog!

This blog is a journal of our struggles with food allergies and eosinophilic gastrointestinal diseases (EGIDs). ("DD" stands for "dear daughter", so whenever you see it in the blog it is referring to my daughter and our personal experience.) My hope is for this blog to be a source of information and support to others who might be trying to investigate, diagnose, treat, or live with, food allergies and EGIDs. Feel free to leave comments with suggestions or requests of what you would like to see on this blog. This is a work in progress. :)




Symptoms of food allergies

Here are some symptoms that DD has shown from her allergies/intolerances:
  • dark circles under the eyes
  • allergy ring around the anus (hers wasn't actually a ring, but a spot on either side of the anus)
    • DD's looked like little spots of diaper rash, but they wouldn't go away no matter what creams we used, or how long she went diaper-less; the skin eventually looked completely raw, as if her stools had burned the skin off. It would occasionally bleed.
  • poo issues
    • green, sometimes looks like strands of cooked spinach
    • mucus
    • blood (red specks or strings)
    • strong, foul smell or acidic smell
    • frequent diarrhea
  • colic symptoms
    • trouble sleeping/frequent waking
      • DD would wake up about 5 minutes after laying her flat; she would sleep longer if I held her upright
    • inconsolable screaming episodes, mostly at the end of the day
    • gassiness
    • arching back, squirming as if uncomfortable
  • spitting up
  • cradle cap
    • this appeared right around the same time as the other initial symptoms and wouldn't go away no matter what we tried. After I removed dairy from my diet, it completely cleared without any treatments.
  • eczema
  • I don't know if this is a common symptom... but DD always gets a lot of dark, sticky ear wax when she's having a reaction to something in my diet
  • for breastfed babies- a sign might be really frequent feeding. DD wanted to nurse sometimes every 20 minutes at our worst point. An LC told me that she probably wanted to eat so often because her stomach hurt, and the milk would make it feel better (temporarily).
Other signs of food allergies (many of these signify an anaphylactic reaction, which needs immediate medical treatment):
  • hives
  • trouble breathing
    • this can sometimes be hard to tell in an infant or toddler. Sometimes it looks like the child is trying to stretch their neck out, or keeps pushing their head forward.
  • rapid pulse/heartbeat
  • sweating
  • behavior changes
  • sleep changes
  • frequent ear infections
Often, children are diagnosed with colic, behavior problems, attention or learning disabilities, or others, when in fact they are reacting to something in their diet.

More symptoms added from user comments:
  • horrible hiccups
  • full body pin prick rashes
  • vomiting
  • a huge increase in number of poopy diapers
  • wetting the bed while sound asleep

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some additional symptoms that we have encountered on this journey are horrible hiccups, full body pin prick rashes, bucketload vomiting, a huge increase in number of poopy diapers, wetting the bed while sound asleep... and yeah, the ear wax thing is a sure sign for us.

Anonymous said...

I ditto the pin prick rashes and horrible hiccups and lots of poopy diapers - I never knew those were a sign, but once I saw it here, I realized that DD had all of those symptoms and they went away (mostly, we aren't at baseline yet) after cutting out dairy.

Anonymous said...

My naturopath told me that dark, sticky ear wax (thick) was a sign of fatty-acid deficiency as well!