My Child's Allergies - Six Months Later.

So, I had some errands to run today and I decided to start early so that Myer wouldn't fall asleep mid-grocery-store again, but by the time I pulled into the parking lot at the store, he was already OUT. It was 9:30AM.

I think he's coming down with something, which is sad, but then you add on top of that the worry of triggering his asthma and wheezing breathing treatments, and his refusing to eat for days on end, and suddenly little colds don't feel quite so little anymore. They feel like you're walking on a tightrope over a pool of hungry sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads.

(Forgive me. I saw Austin Powers no less than 10 times in the theater way back in 1997, and ran to purchase the DVD on the day it was released. I was AM slightly obsessed.)

I've been meaning to touch base again with where we are at with Myer's allergies, and some of you have emailed me personally with similar situations in your own households- wondering what steps we've taken and what has worked for us or not. So, I thought I'd share all that with you guys now, even though I am not entirely confident in our approaches thus far...

Let me start by saying that I am no expert or doctor, these are just my personal findings mixed up with my gut instincts and I'm not making any kind of blanket statements here.

I have ALWAYS been a 'go with your gut feeling' kind of person, which has generally worked out great for me, except for when it doesn't, and then it's quite unfortunate because you don't have facts or research or doctors to pin any blame on, it pretty much all falls right back on YOU. And your lousy, blabber-mouthed gut. haha.

SO, after we took Myer to the allergist six months ago (holy moo it feels like it was years ago) I became completely and utterly overwhelmed. Suddenly I was told to change every single thing about my life and the life of my son. No more wheat, eggs, strawberries, peanuts, dust, carpets, drapes, animals, grass, pollen, or trees. Suddenly there were six perscriptions to be filled every month that cost us more than we were comfortably able to spend. Or to give. We were told he was asthmatic and needed epi-pens and rescue inhalers and blood tests.

Com.plete.ly. Ov.er.whelming.

I had always hoped that, if put in this kind of circumstance, I would magically transform into a supermom who stopped at nothing to find every answer and solve every discomfort that my son was feeling. I don't know, I guess I was expecting some sort of mega-strength to fall from the sky into my lap so that I could be the mom who CONQUERED and BEAT the problem for her son.

No such strength fell from the sky. These past six months have been hard for me, mainly because I have had to face the fact that I feel like I've failed quite a bit, and the guilt that I carry from that can be crushing at times.

We pulled Myer off of all the suspected food for about three months. We gave him the medicines. We tried to keep him indoors, tried to keep him from getting too overheated or sweaty which made his eczema flare up like no tomorrow.

Things were... a tiny bit better? Maybe?

But the effort of finding food that he would actually eat that didn't contain a suspected allergen was taking a toll on me. And the 'progress' that I was seeing was not outweighing the stress and tears and anxiety on my part. His skin was still itchy and raw in places, he still had an almost constant runny nose.

Add to this the fact that I started doing some research of my own and found out that those allergy tests that they give have 60% false positive rate, and I was pretty much convinced that I couldn't keep up this way of life knowing it was based on nothing much more solid than conjecture. On guessing. I was told that some of the foods that showed up positive on his tests could have been because he had eaten some of that food recently and it was 'still in his system'. I was quickly losing confidence in the information I'd been given.

Soooo, we slowly started re-introducing foods. We kept our eye on Myer for any reactions. There were no major changes.

Now, he is back to eating anything except peanuts. He is on an anti-histamine twice a day, and we give him Singul@ir and breathing treatments when he starts showing signs that he is coming down with something. (his asthmatic symptoms seem to be only triggered by him getting sick & congested.)

Other than that, we just try to manage his skin as best as we can. It still gets bad sometimes. Baths once or twice a day, patting him dry, and covering him with vaseline or aquafor seem to be the only things that help. We also have a steroid foam that we put on his spots when they get really bad, and we use a mild detergent on all his clothes.

To sum it up, we are pretty much living life as normal and just trying to manage the eczema. He is still pretty much always itchy somewhere on his body, but it isn't as intense as it once was-- when he used to thrash all night and not be able to sleep due to the all-over itching. There is something in me that feels like this is somehow not enough, that I have failed on some level, yet it seems to be working mostly OK for us for now. He sleeps well at night, he itches a bit during the days, and he is a happy, contented little guy for the most part.

This is what my gut has been telling me to do. To manage the skin as best I can, and go on living our lives.

I really do feel that pulling my son away from every single thing that might maybe cause a reaction in his skin will ultimately do him more harm than good. Of course, my biggest hope and prayer is that he will grow out of all of this and his skin will stop being so itchy and irritated all the time. And I feel that by allowing his body to be exposed to whatever it is that is causing his skin to be this way, he will have more of a fighting chance of doing that by building up immunities.

My next plan of action is to get him in to see a naturopath here in the city who has been able to help some of my friend's kids who have allergies. I figure it won't hurt to talk to someone else about all of this, and I feel like a less "medical" approach may be a better fit for my family.

Are there any of you out there who have had similar experiences with allergies and tests and doctors? Is there anything that helped you that I may not be thinking of or seeing? Talking about all of this really helps me, and I am definitely here for any of you who want to talk through it more as well... just shoot me an email any time or leave me a comment. You guys have been such a help and resource for me in all of this, and I really, really can't thank you enough!!

Chicken Pox, Impetigo, Allergies, Oh My!

First off- Ezra's school is INCREDIBLE.

The teachers! The kids! The mentors! We love it all. It's like a little hidden gem right in my own backyard-- rated the top public charter school in the country... and we had NO idea it was even there when we moved in 4 years ago.

It's not in the best neighborhood. It's not the newest, shiniest building. Ezra's little pale white head stands out noticeably in the sea of beautiful black faces. But you can feel the heart of the place when you walk in the front doors and it's ALIVE and JOYFUL. I can't wait to pour myself into that school as much as I can. To serve it and help it and support it.

And Ezra LOVES it! Hooray!



I have been feeling sooooo sick the last week or so. I've never been this nauseous with a pregnancy before, so I wasn't expecting it. (Girl, perhaps?) It has pretty much laid me flat all week. Now I am just trying to figure out a way to live around it since it seems to be here to stay for a bit. I'm 9 weeks along now and not nearly as LARGE as I was at this time with Myer. I remember thinking there were quadruplets in there when I was first pregnant with him. haha. (phew!) I would post a picture to start the 'pregnancy belly shots', but it seems silly to do when there's no belly yet. I'll spare you until there's actually something to see!



We thought Myer had the chicken pox this week. We were keeping him away from other kids and just waiting for the spots to go away. But when the spots started getting WORSE, I took him into the doctor and found out it wasn't the chicken pox at all. It was a raging case of impetigo that popped up all over his body from when we were in Utah and his eczema got so bad. Poor kid.

I'm praying SO hard that God will take all these crazy allergies away. They make him so miserable most of the time. I have faith that He will heal my little Myer so that he can eat yummy food and play outside and be around the pets and animals that he is OBSESSED with.

Speaking of his allergies, I still haven't found my stride with them yet. The one thing that is making this so hard is that I HATE cooking. I have never really done it or been good at it or had any desire to change that fact. And all these allergy resources and webpages that I'm finding about wheat-free, egg-free, nut-free foods require elaborate COOKING with hours spent in the KITCHEN and fancy flours and MEAL PLANNING and OH MY GORB I just want to stick something in the microwave and feed the kid!!! I am openly admitting that I am lazy. I know it. I have never had any interest in food personally. I eat because I have to, not because I enjoy it. The day that they finally invent a pill that will replace entire meals will be a happy one in my books.

Right now Myer rotates between about three things: oatmeal, hot dogs or ham, and sometimes corn quesedillas. He loves fruit and sweet potatoes, but it's the actual filling of his tummy with substantial food that just about kills me three times a day. He will also sometimes eat gluten free macaroni, if all the planets are aligned and a golden cardinal swoops by the window at the exact moment of his first bite.

He's on medication every day, twice a day. Anti-histamines. But still... every single time he goes outside or gets around a dog or is around too much dust or we use the wrong detergent or he eats the wrong food or gets too hot and sweaty, his skin flares up and he claws at himself until he's raw and it takes a week or two to get it to calm back down again.

I don't feel like I'm handling this gracefully yet. And I wonder if I ever will. It all just seems like too much, you know? Like, I narrow in on the food (like I've been doing the past three months) and keep him on his meds, but then he goes outside or gets overheated and all that hard work goes right out the window. I feel like throwing in the towel about 100 times a day, to be honest.

I just want God to take it all away. Maybe that sounds like a cop-out, but I just can't protect this kid from every single thing every second of the day. I just can't. I know God will never give me more than I can handle, but I think maybe He overestimated me a little bit on this one. Me needs a miracle here, people.

*end of allergy rant sigh*

He's lucky he's so stinkin' cute. hehe.