Thursday, December 2, 2010

Our initial experience

My son was diagnosed with Anaphylaxis to milk, eggs, peanuts, all tree nuts, oats, sesame, shellfish and wheat at the age of 9 months. Yes, that’s all the basic food allergies you come across… lucky us hit the jackpot! Saying that, I’m so thankful that we made it to the age of 9 months with only one health scare. Thankful too that we found out his allergies two days before we went on Christmas holidays to rural Australia where medical assistance would have been a joke.

His allergies were so severe that I had to restrict many foods I ate since it would pass through the breastmilk. I ended up breastfeeding until 17 months mainly because it took us that long to find an alternative. He was even allergic to soy milk at the age of 1 but thankfully grew out of it. I was restricted to a dairy equivalent of one latte coffee a day and a wheat intake equivalent of one slice of bread a day, along with no more fried eggs or seafood for Christmas.

After we came back from holidays, I saw a dietician who specialises in childhood allergies. I can still remember being completely dumbfounded when she explained that my son’s diagnosed allergies probably also meant he was allergic and possibly anaphylactic to just about everything else. Don’t try tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, oranges, even other types of white fish– he’s probably allergic! Thankfully after 18 months she suggested we try some of these foods and we've had quite a few successes!

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