It has been a while since my last update, and it is not due to the lack of yummy food discoveries in the gluten / dairy / egg free world. We have continued to sample and identify new packaged foods and recipes. We've also found that everyone can now tolerate some egg and some dairy in baked goods, so we are able to use a lot of Udi's products which we could not before. Why can we tolerate them now? Maybe because of the GAPS / bone broth cleanse we did at the start of the summer (www.gapsdiet.com). Healed and sealed and now all foods process more easily? Anyway, we aren't arguing.
The most interesting change of note is with Cadel. Her condition has been the most frustrating and hard to manage over time. Elimination of foods really improved things for her for a while, but then her tummy aches seemed to crop back up about 6 months later. We took her to a Pediatric Gastroenterologist in January of this year, but no real conclusions were drawn. GAPS seemed to help her a lot, and while doing full GAPS intro, she didn't have any tummy aches. But that is quite hard to sustain.
Just before our 2 week family vacation Cadel mentioned something to Val about a tummy ache which consisted of "icky water coming up from her tummy to her mouth". Ummm... classic reflux, anyone? Thank heavens she learned to articulate this, because it might just be lifechanging.
Back in January, the Pediatric specialist we saw had prescribed Miralax and Prevacid for us to "try" just to see if either seemed to change her symptoms. I was reluctant to dose her as an experiment, so I hadn't filled either Rx. But with the classic reflux symptoms, we did go ahead and fill the Prevacid before we left on vacation. After 3 weeks of this medication, Cadel has NO tummy aches. This is even with having several "cheats" through out vacation. She seems to tolerate dairy PERFECTLY, which has usually been one of her worst.
Our plan when starting the Prevacid was to schedule with our regular pediatrician upon returning to town, and that appointment was yesterday. Our doc is now actually of the opinion that the Reflux is the CAUSE of the food intolerances. Wow wow wow! So after YEARS of tummy aches, our Cadel may actually finally have a path to recovery.
The idea is that when there is so much acid in the esophagus, damage is done, and once your digestive system is damaged, any food can be hard to tolerate. (This is consistent with the GAPS theory of 'leaky gut', as well, which I totally buy into.) I believe we have done a lot of healing to her gut with probiotics, L-Glutamine, elimination diet, and some GAPS. She may actually have a healthy gut. But she still has all of the esophageal acid causing her pain. So with the introduction of the PPI (Prevacid), the esophagus now has the chance to heal from the damage.
So then what? If we take her off of the drug once she heals, and begin eating all of the foods that irritated her gut before, won't the acid come back, and won't we end up in the same place? This is likely the case. So we need to figure out now what is causing her esophagus to fill with acid. Our amazing doctor recommends a chiropractic procedure called visceral manipulation, which involves manipulation of the organs to keep the acid from being pushed into her esophagus. Once this therapy is complete, there is the possibility that Cadel could be healed from all of her tummy aches!
What then?! Do we go back to our old way of eating? Well, not quite. We have learned too much about our bodies and how they respond to food.
For one, we know that too much wheat / gluten has negative effects on all of us. I have identified several trigger wheat-containing foods that literally make my stomach upset almost on consumption. We know that too much gluten / wheat makes our kids' noses run, and elimination of gluten / wheat has brought us healthier cold / flu seasons than we ever thought imagineable.
Then, there is a lot of information out there that points to the fact that dairy, in particular cow's milk, is not so healthy in mass amounts. Our doc yesterday shared this piece (opinion, not science!) about potential links between dairy and reflux http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/07/got-milk-you-dont-need-it/. Given where we've been, I don't know that the flood gates will ever come completely off with cow's milk. We won't ever drink it. We won't put it on our cereal or bake with it. But will we eat GF cheese pizza with organic mozzarella shreds? Count on it. Will we go out for ice cream? BET on it.
Will my kids get to feel 'normal' at birthday parties and sports team events in the near future? I HOPE for it.
