Food allergies - request for help/guidance

[Guest guest]

Hello!

I am suspecting food allergies and possible chemical

allergies/sensitivites in my celiac daughter, age 5. I am going to try

the Elimination Diet and Food Journal to figure out the culprits. But

in the meantime, I am completely out of my element trying to eliminate

100% of eggs, dairy, and soy. Can anyone pass along any advice on what

helped their children get diagnosed, etc, with their food

allergies/intolerances? (My daughter's main symptom seems to be upset

stomach, and dark circles under her eyes, and I know she isn't being

glutened.) As well, can you point me to any sites/lists of GF/DF foods

and hidden ingredients?

Thank you so much!

-Nina

[Guest guest]

> The good new is that unlike gluten, you will see benefits of

> cutting way back - unlike gluten where you need to cut out every

> speck possible.

My experience with casein (milk protein) is that every trace

counts. I recently ate a tiny bit of soy cheese containing casein

(my dinner host didn't understand when I had explained brands and

their ingredients) and I swear it's just like I've been glutened.

It's over a week later and my symptoms are still coming (my symptoms

go in a cycle so I pretty much know what will hit on which day).

Some of my other food intollerances aren't nearly as bad and I don't

have to be nearly as stict though. If I eat just tiny bits of cocoa

or cane sugar than I'll only have mild GI symptoms for a day. I can

live with that occasionally, but I won't give in with foods like

gluten, casein, rice, tapioca or arrowroot. Those ones really knock

me on my butt.

Basically, I'm trying to say that if your intollerance to other

foods isn't bad then yes, you can gave tiny amounts periodically.

But, you really need to remove the food 100% and then do a challenge

to find out if this is true for you or not.

> On the upside, we have found some really good alternatives. For

> dairy, we like Vance's Dari-Free which is a powdered (white or

> chocolate) milk substitute that our kids love for milk or hot

> chocolate. They didn't like the rice milk, but remember, everyone

> is different. Your child may love rice milk, or nut milk.

Chocolate Dari Free is amazing for hot chocolate. My family does

like both flavours for milk, but I tend to use ready made stuff for

regular drinking and cereal milk. My kids seem to prefer soy milk,

but I usually try to get almond milk as I don't want to overexpose

them to soy or rice.

> But in the meantime, I am completely out of my element trying to

> eliminate 100% of eggs, dairy, and soy.

Have you tried in the short term to just stick with fresh foods

meaning fresh fruits, vegetables, potatoes, rice, meats, poultry

(reading the labels of course) and seafood? All without seasoning,

or just using McCormick's brand since they're GFCF. You can also

use rice pasta as well.

> Can anyone pass along any advice on what helped their children get

> diagnosed, etc, with their food allergies/intolerances? (My

> daughter's main symptom seems to be upset stomach, and dark

> circles under her eyes, and I know she isn't being glutened.

I wish I could help you more on this one. We kind of figured this

out for my 7 year old by accident. She was diagnosed with

Asperger's Syndrome which is a high functioning form of autism. One

of the alternate treatments for autism is a gluten free casein free

(GFCF) diet. I already knew she's allergic to citrus (horrible,

painful, explosive diarrhea) and I have a boatload of food

intollerances so I figured I'd give this a try. Boy has it made a

difference. I decided to go gluten free along with her because I

was already on a difficult diet so this didn't seem to make it much

more difficult and it helps her knowing I can't eat anything that

she can't eat. Well, that has saved my life. I did a couple of

challenges on myself and boy do I suffer for it. Even though all my

celiac tests come back negative and my IgE and IgG tests for wheat

and gluten came back negative, my GI doctor agrees I have celiac.

My daughter's pediatrician now agrees that she has to be on this

diet as well even though when I first told him I was going to do it

he tried to talk me out of it because it's unproven.

My diagnosis of multiple food intollerances was done via blood tests

through Great Smokies Diagnostic Laboratories (www.gsdl.com). This

isn't 100% but it sure made a great starting point for me to know

what to eliminate first. After eliminating foods that showed up on

that test, I've done some trial and error eliminations to figure out

some other foods that I react to.

Once you've eliminated the foods that you are eliminating, try a

challenge to see if it's made a difference

Corn is also a common food allergen. Rice seems to be becoming a

more common one for celiacs unfortunately. I know several of us who

can't use it. I believe the most common food intollerance for

celiacs is dairy (casein) though. You may want to simplify this for

yourself by starting with just dairy to see if it makes a difference.

> can you point me to any sites/lists of GF/DF foods and hidden

> ingredients?

www.gfcfdiet.com

www.gfcfdiet.com/unacceptable.htm

www.gfcf-recipe-resource.com

www.foodyoucaneat.com/food/index.php

I hope all this helps.

Trudy in NH