Allergy Update

For more than 18 months we eliminated the following foods from Ian's diet: milk, soy, eggs, peanuts, cinnamon, and oats. Cinnamon only needs to be eliminated if it's something that is likely to come in contact with his skin; in reality this has just meant not serving him cream of wheat or applesauce that contains cinnamon. No big deal. I thought that oats caused him to have to go #2 multiple times a day, but now it seems that's just how he's wired. I haven't gone so far as to serve him oatmeal for breakfast, but he's had things like oatmeal cookies.

The first offending food that we reintroduced was baked eggs. That was SUCH a big help as it meant he could have far more cakes, cookies, brownies, etc. More recently I served him a little scrambled eggs when we were having breakfast for dinner, but he hated them. I decided that since he still tests positive on the prick testing for eggs I wasn't going to make him eat eggs. If I make eggs, I make them in conjunction with something else (french toast or pancakes). Nadia eats enough scrambled eggs for both of them. I'm perfectly fine with Ian not eating eggs. If at some point he expresses an interest in eating eggs, then we'll give it a whirl, but until that point, I am perfectly fine with not serving him eggs as long as he's eating foods that have eggs in them.

He has had peanut butter cookies, chocolate peanut butter chip cookies, and two peanut and butter jelly sandwiches. The first time he had a PB&J sandwich he got hives all over his face (even around his eyes) and they really bothered him (he was itching like crazy). Since the allergist said he could have soy, I have been buying him wowbutter (soy based) that really does taste very similar to peanut butter. Once since then I made him a sandwich with real peanut butter, but I put in on really thin in the hopes it wouldn't get on his skin. That did the trick. He didn't get any hives. I still have a few jars of wowbutter left, but when those are gone I think I'll serve him peanut butter and just make sure to go easy on it so it doesn't come in contact with his face.

Aside from the wowbutter, I haven't attempted to reintroduce soy protein. If he was still allergic to milk and not allergic to soy any more, then it would be nice to give him soy milk and soy yogurt and such. I haven't completed the milk trial yet so I am holding off on that. If he does fine with milk, I see no reason to try him on soy yogurt or soy milk as those aren't things we typically have in our house.

The last thing I reintroduced was milk. First I was told to only serve baked milk. This was a HUGE help as it meant he could now have things like lasagna, pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches, and tuna noodle casserole. Although everything has gone well so far, I admit I have been very nervous about introducing milk (not baked). So far I have sprayed a tiny bit of butter on his English muffin a couple of times, allowed him to have a couple of packages of cracker/cheese sandwiches, and today I put a little skim milk in his cold cereal for the first time ever (usually I put EleCare in his cereal). He's still drinking EleCare, and I haven't given him a yogurt yet. Even though everything has gone fine so far, I am not wanting to upset the apple cart. I think I'll continue as I am right now and just ever so gradually peridiodically give him a little milk. I think the next thing I'll try is a yogurt. We probably have enough EleCare to last a couple more months so I'm going to wait at least that long before I give him a glass of milk to drink. It is so, so, so nice to not need to read every label and for him to be able to eat things other people have made. He couldn't do that very often before.

Cooking for a family can certainly be a challenge. I make cookies about once a week on average. Last night Nadia requested chocolate chip, but I said let's make one that Daddy likes since he's not a big fan of chocolate chip (although he does eat them). We tried a new recipe for caramel oatmeal cookies. I forgot that Paul doesn't like cinnamon, and he detected that ingredient although there was only 1 teaspoon in the whole big batch. He also told me he's not really keen on oatmeal. So much for choosing a recipe Daddy liked. Paul doesn't like tomatoes, so I picked a recipe for chili that didn't have any tomatoes (even though I really like to have tomatoes in my chili). It's a challenge finding recipes everyone likes, and I'm not even cooking for Oliver yet. I will say all four of us liked the chicken parmigiana that I made not that long ago.