Food Allergy Moms ?

wifeofadam · October 2014

Remember how I put DS1 and myself on the GAPS diet in the hopes that it would do something for his food allergies. It was a long shot, I know, but I felt like I needed to try something. I want him to outgrow these allergies so badly, like he did the others, and everything I read said it was impossible. Someone said try GAPS, so I gave it a shot.

October 1 was one year on GAPS, while it has worked wonders for me (I've now been off my Crohn's maintenance meds for over a year without any flaring), we just got the results of DS1's RAST test today and his scores have continued to climb. His scores for milk and peanuts have gotten worse every year since birth and now his milk is >100, so it's at the severest of severe levels, and his peanut score was 31.5, so not much better. Sigh.

I guess it's time for me to accept that this is his life and that we need to move forward. I'm transitioning him slowly off GAPS now and shifting my focus to educating him. He's 7, so I feel like it's time for him to learn to be more self-sufficient when it comes to these allergies. We took some books out of the library and read them, because I want him to truly understand why he has these allergies and what is going on in his body. I'm going to teach him how to give himself his EPI-Pen now and put him in charge of making sure it is always with him (while also keeping the other one in my purse in case he forgets).

I guess I'm looking for other resources for teaching kids about food allergies. Any kid-friendly documentaries you have seen? Any good books? I feel like all of my kids need to get in on this now and learn about what is going on.

Educating him and praying for a miracle are about all I can do now

kelly321 · October 2014

Oh no, I'm so sorry that the GAPS doesn't seem to have worked.

Have you looked into the peanut allergy studies they've been doing recently? I've only read about them, but in the article I read, it said that over half of the children were able to get to a point where they could actually tolerate eating a peanut. They start them off by exposing them to just a tiny bit of peanut dust and increase it slowly. It's not meant so they can eat a PBJ, it's just so they won't be in danger of dying from eating other food contaminated with peanut dust.
I don't know any more details on the study, and you've probably looked into it yourself, but I thought I'd mention it in case you hadn't heard of it. Sorry I don't know more details, I think the original one was done in England and now they're replicating it in some major clinics in the States.

wifeofadam · October 2014

DC2London said:

Ugh, I was so hopeful for him and for you.
I would start out by looking around here:
https://www.kidswithfoodallergies.org/resourcesnew.php

This is great. They have some printables there that could be helpful for him!