As some of you may have noticed, I have not blogged regularly in the past month. The past few weeks have been action-packed…my 4 year old son, Arjun started pre-K which was an exercise in ensuring that he, his teacher and the other school staff who came in contact with him were aware of his multiple food allergies. Then we did his annual blood work to see if he had overcome any allergies. But, I am getting ahead of myself here so, let me start at the beginning…
My pride and joy, Arjun
When Arjun was just 4 months old, his whole body broke out into hives as he was ingesting less than 2 ounces of Enfamil (a dairy based baby formula). It was one of the most frightening and sad moments of my life. Arjun came into our lives after 3 miscarriages. Seeing him squirm in pain, his lips swollen and his tiny hands reaching out to unsuccessfully relieve himself from the itchy hives was heart-rending. I did not need to be a doctor to realize that he was having an allergic reaction. Subsequent blood work showed that he was allergic to all the top 8 foods that cause a majority of the food allergies. Since he was so small, they did not test him for too many other foods. The bottom-line was…I could not give him anything new without the doc’s permission and even then it had to be introduced very slowly. The doctor told me to continue nursing him exclusively till he was at least 6 months old because studies have shown that nursing has a positive impact on how quickly children outgrow food allergies. Here the doc and I made our first big mistake! He did not tell me and I did not research because of the intense fear that had gripped me – I did not exclude the food items that Arjun was allergic to from my own diet. So, Arjun continued getting exposed to the very food items that he was allergic to in tiny amounts…an absolute no-no!
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