First, a recap:
Five weeks in saw incredible turnaround in her digestion, elimination, attitude, behavior, etc. Shortly thereafter I became less diligent at giving her digestive enzymes with each meal, and continued to have spurts of forgetfulness around the holidays and such. She lost some ground, however it was still vast improvement over her pre-diet conditions. The doctor advised me that he was using a different lab* for the same IgG antigen-whatever test, which was about half the price of the former lab (the former lab offers lots of 'support', the new lab just the results).
Early February we had an appointment and I requested the test. He also ordered a full gluten-panel to check for celiac disease. She didn't enjoy having her blood drawn, but recovered from it quickly. I'm not sure, however, if I've even yet recovered from taking four kids into a blood-draw lab and all that entails. :)
The good news:
She tested very low on the lab's gluten-test. She does NOT have celiac disease.
All of her food sensitivities are minor ones: +1s only. :)
Yeast and nuts are not reactive.
The bad news:
Gluten DID score as one of the sensitivities, as did rice (!), buckwheat, casein (a milk protein), coconut (ack!), tuna and other fish we never eat, green peppers, broccoli (she is even sad at that), cherries, and a few others.
I was wondering about the coconut; we give (gave) her coconut oil with nearly every meal in place of butter, and rice was obviously a common standby. I have made ghee for her today. I think. I'm SO GLAD that eggs are ok, and corn. I'm VERY SURPRISED that yeast is fine. She is thrilled with the prospect of pickles. :)
The doctor wants to see in in another month (sigh) after total and complete
I'm glad to have concrete information, and I kindof wish we had gone this route from the beginning. Then again, she may have had more or more severe sensitivities before we eliminated so much from her diet, and maybe these reactive foods are the best-case scenario we can work with from here on out.
*The lab was Alletess in Massachusetts.
**Klaire products are super-mega-guaranteed to be free of common allergens and contaminants. Early efforts at purchasing them online were halted due to "must have a doctor's order" and I wasn't bold enough to ask for that order so I could undercut our doc. :)
3 comments:
I have been told by many in the allergy ridden cirlces that if you go heavily on something you will become reactive - even if only temporarily. So if you went heavy on rice and coconut with the other things taken out - than maybe she's just reacting temporarily since her system's been overloaded on those things? I don't know.
Finny has been on the egg/wheat/dairy/peanut free diet (because allergy tests showed those as his sensitivities) for three months now - and when we brought wheat back in we saw no change. He never did seem totally better while strictly on the diet, either.
I'm starting to lose incentive to keep avoiding things if he's no better off the foods, and no worse when eating them. I hope your results are mroe clear once you get her off the foods that tested bad!
Bennt
Wow, gluten AND rice?! That's tough!!! Did he mention the possibility that if you get the gluten out long enough it might "heal" the gut and she won't be so reactive to as many things? Hmmm, I'm thinking it might be time to do the bloodwork with Josiah, too. Is it a naturopath you see?
Benny, gosh, I'm sorry about the lack of obvious results for you. I'm not sure what test/s you had done, but I've heard there's quite a disparity between an 'allergy' test and the IgG, blood antigen thing? Did they test a bunch of things (I think there were 180 foods done on this one), or just 'major allergens?' I wonder if there are things he's *mildly* sensitive to that didn't show up, or major ones he wasn't tested for?? I don't know, but I hope you find some answers!!
Yes Andi, I think we 'overdid' our substitutions. And based on my limited experience, her results are *really* not that bad. Hubby's first test had 20 things (ALL his favorites) to avoid, I think, and his 2nd a year later was altered, though not completely different (yeast, milk both times). Too all her sensitivities are so minor! I really think if we'd done this six months ago it would have been a different story. My current opinion is to hang in there for a time, and eventually give her pizza, or have one day a week to break the rules, whatever. If that causes major setbacks, well, we'll go from there. Yes, we see a naturopath (ND), and you might even be able to find a doc that uses that lab thru the alletess site? I don't know. I know this lab was much cheaper than the last one, and they do the WHOLE thing for that price (the earlier one charged another $60 or so to test egg white/yolk separately, or casein/whey, etc. We never did that with Hubby.).
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