Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Allergic to What?!



We went to the doc today for Erin's allergy testing results. She tested negative for any kind of environmental stuff, like pollen and ragweed and normal stuff. Then we got to the basic food allergies. Sheesh. It's a scale of one to six (severe) and the doc said he raises his eyebrows at a 3. Well, Erin got a high 4 for eggs, a 4 for wheat and a high 3 for milk. The best way to decide what exactly is causing her respiratory distress is to have a 2 week hiatus from the offending element, then introduce it in its purest form and look for a reaction, first in the morning, then in the afternoon. For the sake of time, we decided to combine all the elements in our hiatus.
So, in short, for 2 weeks, we are doing without eggs, wheat and milk. Poor Erin. Then I got the doctor's sheets on all the different ingredient names for all of this and the basics of what we can't have. No dairy. No butter. No bread or anything with flour in it. No noodles (!). Nothing breaded. No eggs or anything with eggs in it. Baked goods. Breakfast. Sheesh. So we are down to meat, veggies and fruits. Or anything weird that we can find at the whole foods store, though has anyone seen anything that doesn't have whole wheat this or 5-grain that?? Come on! No goldfish! No chicken nuggets! No toast! No cheese! No pizza!
It's like being on that Adkin's diet, sort of. Thank the Lord that we can have rice and potatoes (french fries). So we have two kinds of rice milk in the fridge (soy milk is nasty; sorry, but have you tasted it?!), lots of fruit and hopefully some applesauce for night-time meds that usually get stuck in milk.
So tonight's dinner is bunless hamburgers, veggies and fruit. Breakfast is grits or oatmeal, after I check the label to make sure there's no wheat products in there...argh! Lunch? No clue. We'll figure something out.
In the meantime, does anyone else have any ideas? We can use all the help we can get.
Either way, it will be worth it. Getting rid of this horrible 7 month cough and wheezing will be SO worth it.

2 comments:

MrsEvenSo... said...

Poor Erin. I agree. How horrible. But...you are absolutely right it is a minor adjustment if we get a healthy coughless punkin! We will be on the lookout for alternatives. Love ya!

Rachie Pachie said...

Ewww... that stinks! How about many of the gluten-free products? That means it uses something other than wheat grain!? I know it'll be more expensive, but try googling gluten-free bread. I'm sure you of ALL PEOPLE will make glorious recipes w/out gluten!

But, no milk or cheese?! I'd die or want to! My g'father actually likes his soy milk, but I am not brave enough to try it! LOL

Thanks for the prayers last night. God was helping me... I feel like I breezed through most of it & was confident on about 90% of my answers! WooHoo! Now, I'm praying He'll get me through the next 7ish wks to finish the 1st part of the summer coursework! :) God's good!