Moments of Weakness

Eating on an allergen free diet is hard.  It's especially hard when I don't plan ahead and I'm hungry and dying for something to eat.  I cannot mess up otherwise I pay for it with Brooks' symptoms.  Last night I hadn't eaten anything substantial for dinner (I'd fed the rest of the family something that I couldn't eat because it was easy), and I decided to make some wild grain rice.  Something told me I shouldn't do it, but I was starving and just felt like eating something warm, nutty, and filling.  I knew Brooks' was allergic to white rice, but I'd eaten wild grain rice before and hadn't noticed it was causing any additional problems.  I haven't had any rice in over a month, so I knew if he had a reaction then I would know he's allergic to ALL rice.  Sure enough just now when I nursed him he threw up all over me and my clean sheets.  Twice.

Ugh.

Here's my list of his allergies so far:
Milk
Soy
Rice
Corn
Eggs
Peanuts (still not 100% sure of this)
Wheat

Last week after feeding Brooks' baby food he broke out in hives on his face 3 different times.  So I'm tempted to believe he also is allergic to a fruit.  Could it be a fluke, I don't know?

The hardest one is probably corn because corn syrup and corn starch are in everything, and not necessarily listed on all ingredient lists as an allergen, so I have to read carefully.  Good thing I love my baby, huh?

I also found out that Elecare the specialty formula that I have tried on Brooks' has corn syrup listed as the #1 ingredient (57% per serving).  No wonder he won't drink it!!!  I looked into the other brands and they also have corn syrup as the number one ingredient.  DISGUSTING.  Maybe I'll have to nurse him until he's 18 months old.

We also think that Preston has developed a corn allergy.  About 6 months ago we noticed that Preston was scratching his backside, bottom and groin to the point where he was bleeding.  We thought he had dry skin or eczema so we were treating it with lotion and steroid creams.  It would not get better and at night when he was sleeping was when he would scratch the most.  Once I realized the Brooks' was allergic to corn I took corn out of my family's diet.  It was pretty much the only allergen that Preston wasn't eating anymore.  We noticed that his skin cleared up completely and I mentioned to Kyle that maybe it was a corn allergy.  When we went to Vancouver a couple of weeks ago though the itching and scabs came back and he also had a huge red ring on his bum called an allergy ring (sorry to be graphic but I know this might help others).  He was eating lots of treats with corn syrup, corn chips, and many other corn items.  His backside looks terrible.  A few nights ago he woke up crying and Kyle found that he had scratched so hard he was bleeding.  So sad. It's going to be very difficult to manage a corn allergy on Preston if that's what he has because the kid is obsessed with candy and chips.

In other news, we have to get Brooks' tongue clipped because he's tongue tied and is unable to eat his baby food with a spoon because he can't get his tongue back there to swallow.  He gags if the food is not very thin because he can't use his tongue.  We are feeding him with a medicine syringe, but we will get it clipped soon by our dentist.  We had to clip Preston's tongue when he was 2, but his was because of speech.