Hi! Welcome to my blog. This blog is a way for me to document my family's gluten free journey. Here I hope to post about recipes my family has tried, experiences we may have and anything else that will document this little adventure we are on.
My name is Jessica. I am the wife of a wonderful and understanding husband and mother to two beautiful little children. I started my gluten free journey shortly after my daughter was born in June 2010. It took several months to adjust and come to terms with the fact that my body couldn't tolerate gluten and I may have Celiac Disease. After Christmas 2010 I drew the line and went on a strict gluten free diet.
It was around that time that I started to notice my son Kayden, age 4, was loosing weight. I did my best to fatten him up and in January we went in for his yearly check up. Kayden weighed in a couple pounds less than the previous year. The doctor wanted to do some blood tests. Since I was wondering if I myself had Celiac Disease (runs in the family), I went ahead and had his doctor test him for that too. When the results came back, he was positive for Celiac Disease.
We were referred to a Gastrointestinal Doctor and shortly after did an endoscopy. His biopsy was negative for Celiac Disease but the doctor did notice he had a lot of inflammation in his esophagus and white blood cell clusters called eosinophils. The doctor told us that Kayden either had acid reflux (GERD) or eosinophilic esophagitis (EE). He treated Kayden for acid reflux and we rescoped a few months later to see if there was any improvement. Well there was no improvement and his eosinophil count went up a little. This meant he had eosinophilic esophagitis (EE)... and yes, that is a mouthful to say. Eosinophilic esophagitis is an inflammatory condition in which the wall of the esophagus becomes filled with large numbers of eosinophils, a type of white blood cell. Usually EE is caused by an allergic reaction, typically a food allergy. The GI doctor put Kayden on a steriod inhaler (that he swallowed instead of inhaled) and referred us to an allergist.
The allergist first did a couple skin prick tests. He tested for common food allergies and nothing really showed up. Next he tested for indoor/outdoor allergens. Kayden came back positive for dust mites and some types of grass. The doctor said he didn't have a strong reaction and since we're not seeing any symptoms to not worry about it right now but keep an eye out for it. He also didn't think this was the cause of his EE. So we did a different type of test, a patch test. They taped a panel with common food allergens on his back and left it there for two days. They removed the patch after 48 hrs and then read it at 72 hrs. Kayden had an unusually strong allergic reaction to tomatoes (the doc is still puzzled by this). He also came up positive for wheat, rye, milk, potato, apple, pea and turkey. Finally some answers! The doctor had us wean Kayden off his inhaler and on Friday, August 12th, 2011 we started him on his new diet. The plan is to do another endoscopy after being on the diet for 3 or 4 months. If he improves then he'll stay on the diet, if not then we'll have to look into something else.
I'll be honest, it was very overwhelming trying to process all this and figure out what the heck I was going to feed this kid! Thank goodness I was on the gluten free diet and had already implemented that into our family! Even though my diet was 100% GF, the family just had to eat GF dinners. So I felt like I had at least that part under my belt. Now to just figure out the other 6 allergies. Luckily the logical side of me kicked in and I realized that most of what Kayden was allergic to he already doesn't eat. Kayden likes his food very plain and is very picky. We have a rule where he has to try at least one bite (or three) of dinner and then he can have something else (usually a pb sandwich or plain noodles). Even if I went through all the effort of making a dinner gluten free, casein free, potato, tomato, etc free... chances are he won't eat it anyway. So with that in mind, I set to work.
This blog is what I'm using to document our experience and share with anyone who may be interested. I hope you enjoy what I have to share!
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