I’ve heard all parents are a little biased about how amazing their children are. So when I tell you that Andrew is amazing perhaps it’s easy to write it off. But seriously…
Andrew is the rare teen who cares deeply for other people and loves to give. Is deeply convicted to do what is right. And who has a passion and relationship with God that I have seen few teenagers have.
So, parent bias or not, Andrew is one amazing person!
This post is difficult as a parent… to boil my child down to only their medical conditions. Honestly, I pray I do it poorly. That you get a chance to glimpse our family as much more than just food allergies or celiac. That you also can find hope of being more than the medical conditions that brought you here. And that our story can encourage you to pursue abundance.
Eczema
It seems like Andrew was born with eczema. He wasn’t.
Actually, when he was hospitalized at 6 days old with what was later discovered to be a mild infection, he had no eczema. He did spend the second week of his life in the hospital to receive IV antibiotics. The eczema developed shortly afterwards. Was the antibiotic treatment related to his allergy development? Maybe. Maybe not.
Regardless, by two months old, his eczema was intense! He had it all over his body but his face looked like an ear-to-ear rug burn!
Food Allergies
At his six month checkup, the pediatrician probably saved his life.
I recall him explaining to me that with how severe Andrew’s eczema was, he should be put on steroids. He didn’t like putting babies on steroids and suggested we test for food allergies first.
Andrew was positive to almost everything! Peanut. Milk. Soy. Wheat. Egg. Fish….
It wasn’t until I got home that it clicked. What am I going to feed this kid? The next several months, I made organic baby food from scratch. Vegetables, fruits, and eventually meat. Grains were much harder. I learned about the dangers of cross-contamination!
Cross Contamination and Life Changes
Mystery reactions became our family’s bane. That first year after diagnosis was definitely the hardest.
In this time we realized how sensitive he really was, leading to a crash course on manufacturing practices. I realized that I couldn’t just read a label and call it safe. I had to call the companies and ask questions about cross-contamination within their facilities and from their suppliers. If it wasn’t a whole food, I had to shop brand specific and call on everything first.
I also realized that we had cross contamination in our home! What we, his parents, ate was causing reactions. Initially, we attempted to keep foods separate and clean. Dedicated spaces and dishes. It wasn’t enough. We became a food allergy free home.
Still, reactions kept occurring. I’ll never forget the day I realized that food is in everything. I was bored…sitting in the bathroom… and decided to read whatever was nearest me. The shampoo bottle. Half way down the ingredient list? Wheat!
Andrew had been having allergic reactions every bath time. We were actually questioning whether he was allergic to the tap water. I had never thought to look at MY hair care products! After all, I wasn’t using them on him.
At this point I realized, food makes it’s way into self care products, cleaners, make-up, soap,… I had to check everything!
And, in my home, I finally gained some control over mystery reactions. We were also relieved to gain eczema control!
More Food Allergies… and Outgrowing
Pretty quick, I realized that Andrew had more food allergies than what had appeared on that first testing…
A popular brand of rice milk had barley. He was able to eat rice fine, but every time he ate the rice milk with barley, he had hives and GI problems. Blood and skin testing confirmed his relatively rare allergy to barley and rye. Overnight our home became gluten free. I had no idea at the time what a blessing in disguise this was for me since I was still years from a celiac diagnosis for myself.
Our first severe reaction was to sesame. I was naive to how life-threatening that reaction actually was. At about a year old, we were still trying to control mystery hives. But when I fed him sesame, he was scratching at his mouth and throat… Following this, he was prescribed his first epipen.
Oats was his other big allergy to develop. He ate them almost everyday for years. Then I noticed a connection to newly developed stomach problems and mystery hives which would happen after eating oatmeal for breakfast. Sure enough, testing confirmed an oat allergy.
Luckily he also outgrew milk and soy at a pretty young age. These are difficult allergies to avoid! Additional foods that were outgrown were fish, strawberry, and sesame! Woo-Hoo!!!
Asthma
The allergic march is the concern of all allergy babies. As hard as skin and food is to control , at least they’re breathing. Asthma snuck in slowly with Andrew, right alongside environmental allergies. Luckily we have been able to control asthma mostly with antihistamines and by moving to a more suitable climate.
A round of pneumonia was a huge setback in Andrew’s asthma control. He was hospitalized for days and took a solid year to recover. During that time he had adverse reactions to several common medications to control asthma. Luckily, with some healing he is again able to control it with daily antihistamines and the help of an herbal supplement.
Today
Like I said, Andrew is an amazing young man. I would like to say that food allergies and medical struggles haven’t held him back. The truth is, it’s hard! So many social situations revolve around food, and Andrew is airborne and contact allergic! He often struggles to connect and has more reactions than our acquaintances know. Amazingly, this young man doesn’t give up. He has learned to advocate and communicate his unique needs for himself and refuses to quit!
Andrew is currently enrolled in the Southern California Food Allergy Institute’s Tolerance Induction Program (SoCal TIP.)