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. :)




Quick update

Sorry readers that I have been MIA for so long.  This has been one of the most overwhelming years of my life. Let's see if I can sum things up briefly.

Last spring, we decided to pull all remaining foods, and DD went to a diet of elemental formula (Neocate E028 Splash.)  Her next scope was clean (no eosinophils or visible tissue damage/inflammation)!  Since then, we've done a ton of food trials.  Most have failed, but a couple have passed, so now she's eating Splash, blueberries, white potatoes, and canola oil.  She's still dealing with constipation, some erratic mood/behavior stuff, and a KP-type rash on her arms and torso, but her scopes are still coming back clean.

This year, she's also been diagnosed with fructose malabsorption, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO- which cleared up with antibiotics, but will likely reoccur), and low disaccharide levels.  She's also had a few other blood tests that were slightly off, so we're still trying to figure out if there's something else going on with her.

We had our first 911 call after she snuck a piece of bread a couple weeks ago and had an anaphylactic reaction.  NOT fun.  The IgE reaction has gone, but the ensuing eosinophilic reaction is still lingering.

The new baby (who is almost 13 months old now!!) is following in big sister's footsteps with a lot of food issues.  She's much healthier than DD was at this age, but I mostly attribute that to the fact that I can recognize food symptoms easier and pull the foods out of our diet faster.  I feel like she's probably also dealing with an EGID, but have no plans to scope her until she's older.  For now, she's just breastfeeding like a champ and eating a couple ounces of pureed green peas per day (her system doesn't seem to tolerate any whole foods, and the baby food green peas is so far the only food that doesn't make her sick.)

I had a double scope done last month to see if there were any unlying causes for my "IBS", and was diagnosed with EoE!  My esophagus looked horrible, with furrowing and rings, and the biopsies showed 110eos/hpf. Talk about a shocker.  There's no doubt that there is a genetic component in our family.  :(  After reading an article that said that eosinophils gather not only in the GI tract, but also in the mammary glands(!), I decided that I need to get my own disease under control asap.  So at the moment, I'm also drinking formula and eating potatoes and canola oil with DD.  I tried to go formula only, but the compulsion to eat is SO strong and overpowering.

That's about it for now.  I have big plans to make a new EGID blog, or make some revisions to this one... but that won't be happening any time soon.  Right now, we're just treading water, trying to keep everyone healthy without losing our minds.  ;)

Oh- national eosinophil awareness week (NEAW) is coming up soon, as well as food allergy awareness week!  Maybe I'll try to get things updated by then.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the update! Sounds like you have your hands full! Interesting to hear your scope came back problematic also, so do adults have different symptoms - at least I hope that means that kids will somewhat grow out of it? And be able to eat all foods later on??

Jessica said...

No, all research points to the fact that you do NOT grow out of it. It's just that every person can present with different symptoms, and I think that I've probably had it for so long that I've adapted and come to think of some of my symptoms as normal. And based on my scope results, I was obviously eating a lot of foods that were triggering my disease. And that was on a really restricted diet for my nursling, free of all top 8 allergens, all grains, and seeds!

Anonymous said...

Oh wow! You didn't eat any grains?!!? none? What did you eat? you are an amazing mom to do that for your child!

Jessica said...

Yep- just meat and veggies, with the occasional piece of fruit. :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Jessica! Was your oldest 100% breastfed when born?
I keep thinking that my kids allergies were caused by the formula fed by the nurses while we were in the hospital... can you confirm? I haven't heard yet of a 100% breastfed baby with severe allergies.... well except when it was hereditary. Ugh, so sorry to hear your little one hasn't grown out of it yet.

Jessica said...

Yes, she was 100% breastfed for 8+ months when we started solids (and then continue to breastfeed until she was 3.)

Anonymous said...

thanks for the update

I hope you realize what an amazing mother you are, your kiddos are lucky