Barrett's Unusual Ice Cream Party

Having children with food intolerances has its challenges for both mom and children. I have watched my children go through some heart-wrenching experiences. There were times where they had to sit apart from the other kids in the church nursery and eat their own little snack so they would not take any from the other children. They have gone to birthday parties where the mother had said they would have something for my kids but then forgot and I took my kids home in tears. In preschool Barrett had to always be the odd one out who got a few Starbursts while everyone else had cookies or cupcakes on the other kids' birthdays. When it was his birthday I was determined that he could be like anyone else and so I made allergen-free cupcakes with little monster trucks on top--only to be told that homemade snacks were not allowed for safety reasons. (Ironically, Barrett cannot eat most store bought snacks for safety reasons). We have gone to wedding receptions where well-meaning people have handed my children cookies which I then had to take away, breaking their little hearts.

One of the worst times was when I had made one of Barrett's favorite meals for the family, and made him his own dairy-free version. We all had a fine dinner and Barrett ate all of his. The disappointment came when I was eating leftovers for lunch the next day and Barrett wanted some too. When I told him his was gone he just burst into tears. I don't know what it was--maybe just the final straw. But we have had so many experiences like that, I wanted to find a book or something to help my children feel better about their situation.

I looked around on the internet for such a book, but could not find anything. I decided to take matters into my own hands and write a book myself, using experiences from my own childrens' lives as well as some children who live near me. This is the result:

BUY IT NOW!

'That will make you sick.'

This is one of the first phrases six-year-old Barrett learns because he has celiac sprue, which means he can't eat cake and bread or even drink milk.

Barrett is embarrassed of how different he is from the other kids in his class...until a new kid who also has unusual allergies comes to school.

At Barrett's Unusual Ice Cream Party, Barrett and his classmates learn that what makes them different makes them special.

It is available from the publisher now, and will be available through Amazon and other large chain stores in mid-April.

For more stories and information visit my author's website and my Facebook page.

Baby#3--Also Gluten/Milk Intolerant

I have been doing a lot of research about food sensitivities since dealing gluten-intolerance. When I got pregnant with my third child I was determined to avoid all of the potential triggers hoping he would not have the same problems as my other children. I chose to have a home birth to avoid hospital medications, interventions, and pathogen exposure. We avoided vaccinations and watched very closely as we introduced foods to my baby. And unfortunately, it hasn't done a lick of good.

Kaden had rashes all over his face for the first three months and has very sensitive skin. He has really bad eczema on his legs, feet, and hands and I have not been able to find the trigger. His stools are not normal. He was in the 85th percentile in weight and at 8 months he had dropped to the 25th. He is very active--but I don't think his activity could account for the huge drop. He does have the same gene sequence as his sister--two different gluten intolerance genes and no celiac genes. He reacts to gluten and milk with a flushed face, increased eczema, diarrhea, diaper rash, and evidence of intestinal damage in his stools, and sleep problems.

On the other hand, he has been much more easy-going than his siblings. He has a very easy temperament, was crawling at 5 months and walking at 10, and learning words at 10 months. It could just be a different personality, or that we knew what to watch for in food allergies so he hasn't had as much stress to deal with.

Either way I am disappointed that our lifestyle changes didn't seem to help even a little bit. The only other known potential trigger that I could not avoid was pesticide. We got chickens to eat yard pests, but the mosquito abatement truck still goes by almost weekly in the summer. I hope one day research shows why so many more kids are having autoimmune problems!

Goat's Milk

Now that we have got things relatively under control for my oldest child, I have been braver about trying new things. It is obvious to me that he still is not getting proper nutrition, even though we seem to have eliminated most of the foods that bother him. His teeth (and probably bones) are particularly bad. He is only 5 years old and just had 2 root canals and some additional cavities filled. Compared to his milk-eating sister with perfect teeth, his teeth are very, very weak. I worry that his bones are in the same condition. I want to make sure to get him the proper amount of calcium and other nutrients required for tooth development before his adult teeth are finished forming. 

I don't think the calcium supplements and calcium-fortified rice milk are really doing the trick for him. I've been trying to make sure he eats calcium-containing dark green veggies every day, but that can be a challenge for a 5 year old. I recently found a source of raw goat's milk and tried it to see if it caused the same reaction that cow's milk does. And lucky us! No reaction (so far)! I am so relieved to find a better substitute that is more nutritious than rice milk, and I will be able to get cheese as well. He is hesitant to try it, but we have slowly been working it in. 

I don't have my hopes up just yet though. We had success with soy milk for about a month before he started reacting to that after switching him off cow's milk so the jury is still out. But the most frustrating part is that his little brother (10 months old) does not tolerate the goat's milk so I'm still stuck using rice milk in a lot of my cooking. :(

Tips for Testing the Diet Change

If you suspect you or your child has gluten-intolerance here are a few tips:

• The gluten protein is very similar to casein in milk and soy protein. It is often wise to avoid those as well too--at least at first.
• You can try a few approaches, depending on what sounds most overwhelming to you:
• 1. Eliminate just gluten, and if there is still a problem eliminate other potential irritants one at a time. This can take a long time and patience, but for some people gradual is easier.
• 2. Eliminate one or more of the main potential irritants and gradually reintroduce them, watching for reactions. (i.e., milk and gluten; milk, soy and gluten; etc). Don't introduce new foods for at least a month--three months is better. It can be overwhelming to try to figure out how to feed you or your child like this, but it is a more certain approach than #1.
• 3. Go to a very basic diet of rice, rice milk, fruits and vegetables, and basic meats with no add-ins (like avoid sausage and watch out for tuna because it sometimes has soybean oil). Introduce foods one at a time and watch for reactions. Don't introduce new foods for at least a month--three months is better. This can also be overwhelming for the same reasons as #2. But then there is no question as to what caused the reaction.
• Be very careful of cross-contamination. Gluten is sticky and even the smallest trace can cause a reaction in some people.
• It might get better before it gets worse. There may be withdrawal symptoms, similar to that of a drug. The body will not be used to it. (That never happened to us but I have seen it happen to others).
• Don't give up! Once you get a system down and get your house stocked with "strange" ingredients it will be relatively easy to make substitutions and get by.
• Keep a food/symptom journal to make sure you get accurate information. It can help a doctor with diagnosis as well.
• Just because medical tests come up negative doesn't mean there isn't a gluten problem. If you feel better--that's a pretty good indication that the diet is working, regardless of the diagnosis. Gluten-intolerance is hard to pick up by tests.

My Sister, Negative Blood Test but Testing a Gluten-Free Diet Anyway

It turns out that my sister, who swore she would never try a gluten-free diet, is giving it a try. I don't know what all of her symptoms are, I just know she has not been feeling well and the doctors tell her she is just fine. She had a blood test for Celiac, some allergy, and her thyroid and all came up perfectly normal. They just assume that means there is nothing wrong but with the way she feels I'm sure she would tell you otherwise. I was looking up information on Celiac.com and found that a lot of people who are gluten-intolerant but don't have Celiac end up with negative blood tests. And my son also had a negative test result and he is extremely sensitive to it. So she has decided to try the gluten-free diet to see if it makes a difference. I hope she doesn't have it, but at the same time it would be a relief for her to find out what's wrong and be able to find a solution to it.

UPDATE: My sister has been feeling much better on a GF diet. She did a trial for a few weeks and then ate gluten again--not a good result. Of course, real results are complicated by the fact that she is in the first trimester of pregnancy so morning sickness doesn't really help. But she was convinced enough to avoid all her favorite foods. People just don't go on a GF diet because it's fun, you know? If you really do feel better it is worth it!

Just an Update

I just wanted to update since I haven't posted in awhile.

The kids are doing very well as am I. It is amazing how much better I feel after going gluten-free. It is even more amazing to see how much Barrett is progressing since we supposedly discovered all of his intolerances.

Abbie is also doing very well on whole milk. It is a relief to see that she is not really bothered by the dairy. I still try to keep her away from soy as much as possible. I will let her decide whether or not to eat soy when she is old enough to connect the effects of what she eats with her symptoms. We've been tempted to test her on gluten again but every time we go to give her some we get a really bad feeling about it and pull back. I hesitate because I must have gone through my whole life with an intolerance and never known it. I don't really want to take that risk with her.

And as a side note--I am loving the Earth Balance soy-free butter. It has made life 10 time easier!

Seizures?

I don't want to sound paranoid, I'm not that concerned about it at this point, but I wanted to write it down.

Last Saturday at a social gathering Barrett exercised such great self-control for the most part. I was very proud of him. He was hovering over the cookies and cheese crackers with such longing, but he would just look up at me and say, "Those will make you sick." However, you can only expect so much self-control for a two year old. After about 30 minutes he snuck under the table and was eating the crumbs of some smashed cheese crackers.

We saw the usual contamination symptoms: stomach ache, diarrhea, diaper rash (his poor swollen legs!), runny nose/cough, bloating, meltdowns, etc. But I also noticed times when he would just stare off into space an appear not to be aware of anything for several seconds. Then he would just go on as if nothing had interrupted what he was doing. Just yesterday he had been crying because he got a sliver in his foot. My husband was holding him and then he just stopped for several seconds and was staring into space. I was snapping my fingers right in front of his eyes and he wouldn't blink or anything.

I don't want to jump to the conclusion that these are seizures, but the certainly could be. It's something that I am going to watch closely and keep in mind though. I'm not sure if there is a link between that and celiac or not. If anyone knows anything about it though, please comment! (It only seems to happen if he is contaminated).

Confusing Contamination

I have no idea what caused it this time, but both kids ended up with the strange-smelling, undigested diapers, bloating, and had trouble sleeping. Barrett was a major basketcase as well and niether one would eat much for a few days. It started a few days ago after we had a casserole for dinner that had sweet potato, carrot, cinnamon, pineapple, molasses, and brown sugar. It didn't really peak until we had pancakes and sausage for dinner last night though. It could have been cross contamination in the pancakes, or it could have been the sausage. The ingredients looked okay but you just never know. Perhaps I was too lax with the ingredient listed "flavorings". In fact, it probably was something in that because the worst part of the contamination was today. That's when the diapers started smelling strange anyway. I guess I should have been more careful. It's just that sausage is so nice and fattening...

The Baby Definitely Has A Food Intolerance Problem

It is now obvious that Abbie has a problem similar to Barrett's. Her diaper rashes and diarrhea the last week have been sure evidence. Unfortunately I can't pinpoint the exact cause yet. We started giving her more milk products like yogurt and cheese, and I also have been slack on my own gluten-free diet. It's possible the gluten from breast milk is bothering, or the increase in cow's milk has been bothering her, or both. So now we get to start the elimination process with her. Keep those things out of her diet for a few weeks to see if she improves, and then add them back in one at a time and see what happens. I already suspected gluten which is why I don't feed it to her directly, but my current theory is that both are a problem. I know for sure that she can't tolerate eggs at this point. She and Barrett both had a hard time the last time we fed eggs to them. I'm not even going to attempt soy with her if she can't have casein.

Oops! A Little Cow's Milk

Last weekend we left Barrett with a babysitter. We made the mistake of assuming she would remember from last time that he couldn't have gluten or milk since her sister has the same problem. Never assume anything. We came home to find a sippy cup with the last dregs of cow's milk in the bottom. (It was in the morning). That night at about 2 am Barrett woke up screaming, "poopy diaper!" Now I know how long it takes for a contaminant to affect him. I've changed a lot of diarrhea diapers since then. Today is the first day he hasn't had one...yet. Hopefully it has cleared his system by now. I felt so bad about it. He never complained about his stomach hurting though, and it didn't seem to affect his personality, which is good. Just diarrhea and diaper rash. Those contaminated diapers sure smell bad though!

We have finally ordered the protein drink the doctor recommended. I couldn't find it anywhere in stores and they changed the name to Regence Boost Fruit Beverage so it took me awhile. It also has whey protein from cow's milk and I wanted to make sure that wouldn't bother him before I forked out the dough. I bought some Special K protein water that has whey protein in it to test it out. It didn't seem to affect him so I went ahead and ordered a six pack of the Boost. Hopefully it won't bother him either because he really needs the nutrients. His fingernails are still peeling.

An Egg Reaction, I Think

We wanted to be sure whether Barrett was really sensitive to eggs or not so we scrambled up a few and fed them to him and his sister Abbie for dinner a few nights ago. They both ended up with diarrhea. I was not surprised about Barrett but I was surprised about Abbie. She doesn't appear to be sensitive to either milk or gluten. She is generally somewhat constipated though, so I don't know if it was just her body trying to clear itself and was just a coincidence with eggs, or if there was some bacteria or something in the eggs that mad them both sick. It's too bad it's so hard to tell these things for sure.

Baffled

Barrett has been a basket case the last two days. So much that I could hardly stand to be around him. He has been very whiny and has refused to eat much of anything. Today the reason was manifest in a full-blown diaper explosion. His diapers had been getting progressively greener and runnier, but this one required the bath tub. The only culprits I could think of were buckwheat hot cereal, Trix cereal, or fruit snacks. I'm still unsure about corn, I have suspected food dye, and the buckwheat could be cross-contaminated, or it could be the buckwheat itself. He's had buckwheat in his diaper but it has hard shells that are difficult to digest anyway. I assumed it would be that way for anyone, but perhaps I am wrong. It could also be the canola oil he's had the last couple of days.

ETA: I just remembered that we have been giving Barrett Prednisolone the past couple of days for his asthma. Some versions of it have some ingredients that contain some milk proteins, I discovered after looking it up. The particular one he took didn't appear to have it, but that is the only thing he has ingested that he doesn't usually eat.

ETA: Yesterday, Saturday, the contamination cleared. I still don't know what it was, but I'm glad it's gone. He had horrible diaper rash until yesterday afternoon. (It's great for potty training, by the way. I can actually get him to poop in the toilet when he is contaminated)!

Cross-Contaminated Trail Mix

Yesterday I ate a bunch of Sam's Choice Trail Mix. The label said it was made on equipment that processes wheat. I figured it wouldn't be a problem because if I am sensitive to wheat at all, I didn't think I would be very sensitive and was sure not much could get through to the baby. Well I was wrong at least for my part. I felt awful this morning and I haven't felt like that since going gluten-free. It could have been coincidence or it could have been something else. That was just the most likely candidate. It looks like I may be on this diet permanently.

Bloating Tonight

Barrett's belly was very bloated tonight. I could tell without measuring but I measured anyway. Around his belly button he was 21 1/2 inches (normally 18 1/2). He has just been complaining that his stomach hurts as well. So far he hasn't had any other symptoms but we'll be watching him.

Foods he ate today:
buckwheat cereal in rice milk, banana, homemade zucchini bread, mixed nuts, quinoa cooked in chicken broth with organic ketchup, pineapple, apple, orange, Baked Lays Natural potato chips, black beans

I'll update if and when more symptoms show up.

ETA. I just read the label of the chicken broth I used. It was Swanson Natural Goodness Chicken Broth. It claims to have no MSG. However, the label says it has autolyzed yeast extract (oops, I was supposed to be avoiding yeast anyway). It could be the yeast that made him bloat, but he has never bloated from the yeast in the tapioca bread he used to eat. In fact, I have never seen him react to yeast. However, this website mentions that a different variation of Swanson broth states that the yeast extract comes from wheat. This article talks about manufacturers hiding MSG under the name of autolyzed yeast extract which is used to make MSG (wikipedia:yeast extract). MSG is something that should generally be avoided because it often is derived from wheat--and many people who react to gluten react to MSG anyway.

Adding Mom and Sister to the Diet

I have suspected that my daughter, Abbie, who is now almost 9 months old is also intolerant to gluten. I was pregnant with her when I discovered that Barrett couldn't eat it. I was worried about her getting exposed to gluten too early as well so I went gluten-free for the last month of my pregnancy and the first months or so after she was born, since I was nursing her. She was a perfect baby: healthy, happy, easy to please. She started sleeping through the night when she was 9 or 10 weeks old and I could just lay her in bed and she'd fall asleep without crying. I slowly started eating gluten again (I'm a sucker for chocolate chip cookies and rolls!).

When she was about 4 1/2 months old she started waking up twice a night, then three times, then every two hours, then every hour! I waited for growth spurts to end, teeth to come in, milestones to be learned, and still her sleeping did not improve. She got to be really gassy as well and became very famous for passing gas all the time. I really didn't want to go gluten-free again, but when my gene test from Enterolab showed that I had two gluten-sensitive alleles I knew that my kids had a three in four chance of having gluten intolerance--and it would probably benefit me as well.

I really didn't want to go gluten-free again but I'll do anything for my kids so I've been gluten-free for about a week again (and it really isn't so bad). She is still sleeping horribly but I suspect it will take some healing time and body-adjustment time before that improves. But she hasn't been gassy at all. A good sign that she is improving, but a bad sign since I was hoping she wasn't gluten-intolerant.

Even more, I myself am feeling much better. After Barrett's Enterolab results came back I began to wonder if I was gluten-intolerant myself and started paying attention to what happened after I ate it. I noticed very slight, uncomfortable intestinal cramps. Nothing bad. Nothing I would even complain about to anyone. I could have had them my whole life and just passed it off as a natural digestion process because it wasn't very painful. And what do you know, since I've been gluten free I haven't had that at all! I want to do stool samples through Enterolab for my whole family but I can't afford to do it right now. I refuse to have a biopsy done for any of us because I think it is the most useless and ridiculous diagnostic process I have ever heard of.

I think I'll end up staying gluten-free at least as long as my baby is nursing, and possibly forever. I just hope I don't have any problems with casein because I am addicted to milk shakes and cheese!

Signs of Contamination

There are 8 things we watch for to see if Barrett has been contaminated:

1. Behavior. Shortly after he eats something bad he becomes a basket case. My sweet little boy turns into a nightmare. He whines because he can't zip his jacket up and when you help him he cries because he wants it off. He quits paying attention to what he's doing so he trips a lot. Normally when he trips he says, "I fall down," and goes on his way, but when he is contaminated he sobs and sobs or else throws a tantrum. There are also times when I suspect seizures--he blanks out and doesn't respond for 10-20 seconds, but I can't tell if he's just spacing off or if they are really seizures.

2. Sleep. He usually wakes up several times in the night afterward. Sometimes with a poopy diaper or upset stomach. But sometimes he just gets up and plays and talks to himself and gets really hyper.

3. Diapers. We pay attention to a lot of things with diapers. Frequency, volume, content, smell, and acidity. He usually has 4-5 bowel movements after contamination that are large in volume, contain undigested food--and smell absolutely horrible! They are also very acidic but I'll get to that in the next one.

4. Diaper rash. His diapers after contamination are usually pretty acidic and he gets burn rashes all over. He usually tells me his "bum hurts" immediately after passing a BM. It's difficult to clean off and usually requires rinsing with water so it doesn't continue to burn him.

5. Stomach Cramps. This can be hard to tell. It was a relief when he finally learned to say, "Stomach hurts!" so I knew for sure. I think when my baby gets stomach cramps she just cries out suddenly or twitches side-to-side a lot. She is also really gassy and often gasses or burps after she has been twitching or crying out. I am assuming the reason is that it hurts her stomach.

6. Bloating. Sometimes after he eats food he shouldn't his stomach bloats, but not every time. I haven't been able to figure out at what point it bloats or what exactly causes it. It's just something we have seen happen on more severe contaminations.

7. Eczema. After being contaminated sometimes his eczema on his ankles flares up. I haven't noticed it lately though. My theory is that we've finally managed to eliminate all of the allergens from his diet. Hooray!

8. Loss of Appetite. After contamination Barrett rarely asks for food and usually refuses it when we offer. If he does it it's only bites of what is given him. It used to stress me out because he is so skinny, but I learned that he doesn't digest the food anyway. It just comes out in his diaper and gives him cramps and a rash so he is better off not eating much.

Diaper Rash and Bloating Photos

Barrett never got this kind of rash until about a month ago. It seems to be related to either soy or corn. It is usually accompanied by the burn rash but this one tends to spread up his back and down his legs a little. It doesn't seem to bother him at all though.
Sometimes the rash spreads to his legs if the BMs are large and the diaper chafes his legs. His legs then swell up so we have to cut off the edges of the diaper or fold them under.

This is what the burn rash usually looks like. Sometimes it is so bad he actually bleeds.
Barrett's stomach often bloats after eating "illegal" foods. Around his belly button he normally measures 19" but when he bloats it is usually close to 20". It's hard to tell in this picture but the bloating usually occurs right under his ribs. his ribs actually get pushed out a little bit and it makes him look like an Ethiopian child.

Accidental "Contaminations"

After having been on a gluten/casein free diet for over 6 months this is how long it took for Barrett to get over eating bad foods and how much they affected him

The effects of a cheese cracker:

• Stomach cramps a few hours later
• A few hours of being extra sensitive (cries or throws a tantrum over every little thing)
  
• 2 or 3 "contaminated" diapers
• Waking up multiple times that night
  

The effects of a powdered donut:

• Two weeks of stomach cramps and bad diapers
• Two weeks of night waking
  
• An additional week of effects tapering off
• Several days of being extra sensitive
• Always manages to pick up a nasty cold during this type of contamination
• Eczema flares up for a few days
• Diaper rash burns
  

The effects of 5 corn chips (with soybean oil--not sure what triggered the reaction)

• Two weeks of extremely bad diapers
• Two weeks of night waking
• An additional week of tapering off
• Several days of being extra sensitive
• Always manages to pick up a nasty cold during this type of contamination
• Eczema flares up for a few days
• Diaper rash burns
  

What "Contaminated" Bowel Movements Look Like

Newborn: Every diaper I changed for the first three months of my sons life was poopy. That is not an exaggeration. It was always just yellow and runny and very acidic. It would burn his bottom and so we had to change him immediately and frequently. He would squirm and try and hold it in as much as he could because it would hurt him.

Baby: After he started solid foods the BMs were very large and runny and would explode out of his diaper in every place imaginable.

Toddler--no special diet: They were very acidic and would leave burns on his bottom. He would have 3-5 very large BMs every day. They were very sandy; it literally looked like he had been eating sand.

Todder--after being on a gluten-free diet: When he is not contaminated they are solid only has one a day. They do not have a strong smell. When he eats something he shouldn't they are be very large, very acidic, and very frequent. They look undigested and whole foods can be identified. They have an extremely strong and unique smell that "hovers" and does not dissipate for a long time after the diaper has been changed and taken outside.

An Overview of Our Story

If you would have told me when I got married that I would have a child with severe food intolerances I would have laughed. Nobody in my family, extended family, or anscestry had any known food problems except for one cousin who was allergic to pretty much everything. It was the same with my husband's family.

Barrett was my first child and so I did not know what was normal and what was not. He was born a month early and had diaper rash from the day he was born until three months later. Four doctors and several treatments later did not help in the least. I finally discovered that a concotion of A&D for burns and Mylanta solved the problem. It was a fix for the symptoms but I never discovered the cause.

Many months later when Barrett was walking he got a very severe diaper rash. He had rashes on and off for no apparent reason but never this bad. It was so bad we had to put toys on a chair for him to play with because he couldn't sit down. If he dropped one it hurt too bad for him to pick it back up so we had to be right there with him all the time. We had to rinse him off in the sink when he needed a diaper change because it hurt so bad to have us touch him with the wipes. We were at a loss and my special diaper concoction (we refer to as Stuff) had ceased to work months ago. We also noticed that when he had a bowel movement it looked almost like a pile of sand.

We did what any computer-programmer's family would do and did an internet search on sandy bowel movements and diaper rash. The search took us straight to a thread on Celiac.com. I was a little bit surprised because I was looking up diaper rash, not food intolerance. It had never occurred to me to make the connection. But I read about people with similiar experiences whose children were all diagnosed with Celiac. My husband's sister had been diagnosed with Celiac six months earlier so I did a search on symptoms and sure enough, Barrett had almost every one. I just hadn't recognized them.

I had no idea that it was not normal for a child to have 4 large bowel movements every day. I didn't know that sleep problems were related to digestion. He got sick easily, and I myself have an autoimmune disease although it is not food related. Everything seemed to come together. I realized that just before the bad diaper rash showed up we had eaten whole wheat pizza for dinner. Looking back further I realized the ever since my husband's sister had been diagnosed with Celiac I had tried to keep an eye on Barrett after eating wheat products, but I could never be sure if it was affecting him because I didn't write anything down and I brushed off what I did notice as me being paranoid.

We took immediate action and started my son on a gluten-free diet while we looked up diagnosis and treatment methods. We called his pediatrician and requested a blood test. The blood test came up negative but we had read that it was not a very reliable test, especially for kids under age five. We read the same about a biopsy. So we brushed off the test results and kept him gluten-free.

It took some time, but after several weeks he started to have fewer and smaller bowel movements, and they started to look less sandy. The diaper rash faded sooner than that and the burns on his bottom healed. That was enough evidence for me.

However, he still had problems every so often and although we had tried to eliminate all hidden gluten if we were missing something. We read that others with gluten intolerance could not tolerate casein either, so we decided to try to eliminate milk from his diet. Bingo. We solved it! Or so we thought.

He made even more improvement but after awhile we still felt like we were missing something. We had not had much success with local doctors. No one seemed to know much about what was going on, or even think that anything was going on at all. The pediatrician said if I was really worried I should just make an appointment with a gastroenterologist and have a biopsy done. I was completely against doing a biopsy because I would have to put Barrett back on a gluten-containing diet just to get a positive result. It seemed ridiculous to do something I knew would cause my son a lot of pain and discomfort just to prove that it was doing him damage. That much was obvious. I wanted to know what was causing the damage and a biopsy could not tell me that. We even tried a chiropractor and some homeopathic medicine that did absolutely nothing. We also had Barrett tested for cystic fibrosis (which thankfully he doesn't have).

Then we discovered Enterolab. We had read about it on Celiac.com and decided to fork out the money for it. (They do not deal with insurance companies). We sent for the tests and sent them back in. A few weeks later we knew that my son was sensitive to gluten and casein and carried no Celiac genes but two gluten-intolerance genes. It was so nice to know for sure that he had those sensitivities and that it wasn't some other obscure problem.

However, Barrett had still been having trouble and Enterolab does not have a test for corn sensitivity yet. We had found a connection between some cornbread muffins I had made, some taco soup a neighbor brought us (but cleared all ingredients with me first), and some Earth Balance margarine with natural flavoring derived from corn. I was sure it was corn that was causing the problem but my husband wasn't convinced. We tried feeding him some corn chips. He at about five of them and he had horrible diapers for two weeks and I was convinced.

But we had sent in for some more tests through Enterolab and the results showed that he is also extremely sensitive to soy (we had been feeding him soy milk for months) and mildly sensitive to eggs and yeast. No wonder we had been missing something! We looked back to the foods that had bothered him--the corn bread had the margarine which is soy based, the taco soup had hydroginated soybean, and even the corn chips were cooked with soybean oil. So we are still trying to figure out if corn really is a problem or not.

That is all to the story--for now.

E.T.A. Since writing this I have had an opportunity to experiment on Barrett with corn. He made such improvements after removing soy from his diet we decided to try corn again. Straight corn so there would be no confusion with any other ingredients. That was three days ago and so far--no reaction! It is such a relief! I let him have a corn tostada today, we'll see how that goes.