What DO you feed him?

I get this question a lot. Actually, I cannot remember a time where I have stated my son's known allergies and not received this question in return, in nearly that exact phrasing and influx.

My son is allergic to wheat, barley, dairy, egg, peanuts, tree nuts and a particular type of mold that grows in undisturbed mulches. I usually leave the last one out, as the list is long enough without having to explain why that last one matters. (It goes something like this: playground, mulched surfaces, post rainy days, little hands touch ground and mouth = reactions). My son doesn't have small reactions to anything. They are more like big bad explosions, and differ depending on the specific offending item.

The learning curve in food allergy is huge. I was a bumbling idiot on this subject before I had my son, and I now know all too much about the matter, which means I also don't know enough yet. No one does. We have more questions than answers when it comes to food allergy.

I was aware that we were at risk, as my husband had allergies as a child, so I did what they recommend you do. I breastfed exclusively for the first 6 months before introducing solids. I nursed him until he weaned himself. I made all his food from scratch. I introduced one new food a week. I steered clear of the top 8 allergens for the first year, as well as other foods that can cause problems for those under two, (berries, corn, etc). Blah blah blah. Did it make a difference? I don't know. Could it be worse? Well, as my grandfather would say, it could always be worse.
Once he turned one year old, I fed him one teaspoonful of plain white yogurt. (Yogurt is supposed to be easier to digest than straight up cow juice.) What followed cannot be described accurately with mere text. In a nutshell, he vomited for nine hours, and we paid an exorbitant co-pay for a visit to the ER, where they finally decided he was milk allergic. I say finally because at first, they accused me of feeding him strawberry yogurt. Plain yogurt, I say. No berries, I say. Single ingredient: milk, I say. They didn't seem to want to believe me, but eventually they realized I wasn't a liar, or an idiot. Or maybe they just didn't care. Or got bored. Who knows.

Well then my mind snapped back to a day when my son was about 7 months old, and reacted to the heel of the bread. It's an Italian tradition to give a baby the heel the the bread when teething. Its supposed to be good luck. When an Italian family member gave him the heel of the bread, it was in his mouth before I could protest. I figured, we'll watch and we'll see. Projectile vomiting and hives ensued, but there was a delay to this reaction. A delay that was long enough to keep this allergy novice from really putting it together. "Could have been the bread" I thought. But I couldn't really know which ingredient in the bread was the problem. Could also be viral. I dunno. Hives continued for the next day, and then he was fine.

So here we are, almost 3 years from that day, and the list has continued to grow. I am hopeful it will shrink. I say hopeful, but I am also realistic. Many times, I have been told, "test scores look good, might have grown out of X". Alas, the test scores were not good enough. At this point, we have failed two challenges for two different foods, but that is a story for another day. For right now, I choose to remain hopeful, and keep my little boy on his caveman diet.