I never considered our families to have more signficant allergies than other families. I have very mild haver fever. My husband has bad hayfever which sometimes triggers his asthma. But for the most part allergies do not affect our regular daily lives.
Growing up my siblings and I were healthy. The common cold was the most significant illness that I remember. But when my very happy contented baby boy did not progress past pureed baby food we new something was wrong.
Alex was a healthy baby. He was breastfed and loved to feed. Alex did not spit-up as a baby and showed no signs of colic. However, when I retured to work and he had to take a bottle it was difficult because he would go the whole day and wait for me to come home to eat. This is a common problem with breatfed babies so we tried to find other ways to introduce food.
Intially we tried rice cereal he did not take to it. He was about 3 months a little early for solids but not too early. So we backed off and we waited a couple months and reintroduced solids with pureed baby food and other non-rice based foods. He did much better this second time. He favored squashes and veggies. Mixed cereal with some milk is a favorite.
When Alex was about nine months old my mother in-law was at the house watching Alex. She went to the cupboard and mixed some cereal and got a charge of baby food. She proceeded to feed him this mixture which he had eaten so many times before. With in minutes he threw-up and his mouth and lips became incredibly swollen. He looked like a real life version of the Joker from Batman (without the make-up). My husband woke from his sleep they ran to the pharmacy, got Benedryl into him and rushed him to the doctors office.
After sometime at the doctors office he began to return to normal. I arrived from work and we went with the doctor. The doctor seemed a little confused and mentioned that it was very rare to see allergy reaction in children before the age of one. He recommended that we see an allergist.
We went home and made an immediate appointment with the allergist. The first appointment was a couple weeks out. As parents we are very concerned I called the cereal company and report what has occured (concerrned of contamination). We keep the cereal and read through the list of ingrediants over and over. How could this have happened? He loves this cereal. He has eaten it so many times
The day of the appointment with the allergist comes. We back up our baby and take him to the appointment. We relive the horrible occurrence as we tell the allergist what happened. They concered the list of ingredients and then suggest some items to test for allergies. The allergist explains very carefully to us that either you have and allergy or you don't there is no inbetween. So when we prick his back with the allergen we will se a reaction if he does have an allergy.
We hold down our beautiful happy baby while they poke his back. He cries in pain and fear at what has occurred. I try to rock and console him in the cold office while he shivers with his exposed body so we can see if any reactions occur from the pricks of allergen on his back. The nurse kindly brings Alex a small bear to play with hoping to calm the crying and relax him.
After sometime the allergist comes back to the room and observes the reactions. Nothing has happened. I trys to explain the reaction Alex has had to the cereal as being possibly a virus or something else other than allergies. He then explains how to test foods by placing some around his mouth before he eats the food. If the skin with the food welts then he is allergic and we should not give him the food.
Wow.... Are baby is fine. This was a freak accident. We will be more careful with his food and everything will be fine.... We return home with more questions and more confused than when we went to the appointment. Again we study the list of ingredients. I walk away with a sneaking suspicion that maybe one of the last ingredients on the list is the cause. "Cocunut Oil?"
Things return to normal. His new favorite food is oatmeal mixed with yogurt.
By time he was a year old we started to introduce finger foods (cherrios, crackers, etc...) he seemed to enjoy these foods. This all sounds normal, right. It seemed to us it was. Of course we are being very causious about foods. I soon realize he might have an allergy to peas in addition to the suspected coconut oil.
Alex also starts vomitting at meals. First we think he is eating to fast. We slow the time between bites and give him less at a time. We start tracking what he eats to try and determine if there is a pattern. Is something causing him to vomit? Babies vomit, maybe this is normal.
This is when the real problems begin to start to surface. Alex is not a year old. He has no interest in food beyond baby food, cherios and milk. I try giving him soft noodles, mashed potatoes, or partially blended foods. The idea is that we move him
