My adventures in the land of food allergies started almost a year ago with my then 6 week old daughter, Evie. She had a rash all over, was throwing up, passing blood in her stool, had slow weight gain, little growth her first month, and finally became lethargic and weak. After three trips to our local emergency room, a pediatric gastroenterologist handed my husband and I the diagnosis of a milk allergy. I was nursing my daughter, so that meant that I had to cut all dairy products from my diet. Within about three weeks, it was like we had a completely different child. She was sick less often, gaining weight as well as inches, and best of all, she was happy. I switched to soy milk and gave up all foods with even traces of dairy in them. I learned to read food labels thoroughly, and picked up little tricks to make cooking without milk taste like I was. 

Unfortunately, within a couple of months of switching to soy milk, we started to notice changes in my then 2 1/2 year old son, Liam. He went from being fully potty trained to having accidents more and more often. He also started having frequent bouts of vomiting and diarrhea. His behavior degenerated, and my happy go lucky little boy got into trouble more and more often.  Then, just after Christmas, Liam started throwing up a couple of times a week. We started cutting soy out of his diet, but he still continued to get sick off and on.

Finally, after repeated trips to the doctor and screenings for everything from bladder infections to diabetes, our pediatrician referred us to a  pediatric allergist. Since Liam has eczema and contact allergies we'd gone to one before, and knew what to expect. The allergist tested him for soy, milk, and seafood. We asked for fish to be included, because the one common thread every time my son got really sick was that we'd been to a party or family gathering with shrimp, muscles, etc. on the menu.  The skin-prick test today showed that Liam is allergic to all shellfish and soy. It's good to know what's caused all the weird things this poor kid's been going through. The hard part is going to be coming up with meals and snacks that don't overlap allergens. In my next post I'll be talking a bit about what the recommended foods to avoid for dairy, shellfish, and soy are. Some of the foods that can contain shellfish, for example, I never would have expected.