I have really been MIA around here for a while. Sorry about that. We have been dealing with nothing but sickness and other medical stuff with the kids nonstop since November. The younger twin has had a really rough go of it. Since November he's dealt with a rare kidney infection, two ear infections, the flu, the dreaded norovirus thats going around, an intestinal infection that he picked up while inpatient in the hospital, which he also shared with his baby brother, yippee for me!!! We've spent more time at the ER, the urgent care, the pediatricians office, lab, and the childrens hospital in the last two and a half months than I can ever remember previous to this. So not fun!
He's also had an upper and lower endoscopies to check him for Celiac as well as a variety of EGID's. So far everything has come back "normal". They also decided to check him for Hirschprungs Disease, but it looks like they didn't take enough of a biospy to either completely rule it in or out. I still have to forward the pathology reports to our new GI doctor and see what he thinks and wants to do. So again we are still left wondering why this kid is still failure to thrive and chronically constipated. Hopefully the GI doctor will be of some help.
Through all of this I have been doing food reintorductions with the littlest one. So far we've gotten back almonds, so yay I can cook and bake with almond milk again!!!!! I am super excited. We also got back peanuts and peanut butter as long as it all natural and made with palm oil. We trialed eggs yet again and he failed miserably. Horrible diarrhea and rashes that looked like someone burned him all over his face and neck and upper torso. So eggs are out and I am super bummed, I mean SUPER bummed about it. Baking is so hard without eggs. Doing the wheat trial was frickin' scary as all get out! I'm telling you I wanted wheat back soooooo bad! And he was on wheat and gluten for a good two weeks with nary a symptom and then the norovirus reared its ugly head and then he picked up the intestinal infection that the younger twin brought home from the hospital and he had stomach pain on and off ever since. I'm giving him a boatload of probiotics to hopefully help his gut heal, but I know he got trashed being that sick for over two weeks. He went a whole week not being able to keep anything but water down. But thankfully Flagyl came to our rescue and helped to get him eating and drinking again.
So today I'm going to talk a little bit about a new product I found online that helps kids with vomiting and diarrhea keep hydrated. With all the kids food issues they cannot tolerate Pedialyte at all, it usually ends up making their diarrhea worse, or worse yet, causing it. So this stuff is called the B.R.A.T. Diet Drink. I used it with the littlest one and he seemed to tolerate it well. I had to get the original flavor and he wasn't to happy with that, they also have a vanilla, but we avoid vanilla flavoring because most is extracted using corn alcohol. Here is their website, check them out. http://www.bratdiet.org/ I like that they are dairy, soy, and corn free as well as being non GMO. I couldn't find them in any local stores to me so I ended up ordering a case on Amazon. Thankfully I am a Prime member and got free shipping. And now I have some for whenever we need it again.
We need to restart food introductions with the littlest one since its completely been on hold since he got sick, but I don't want to start again until hes not saying his stomach hurts everyday. Not sure if hes attention seeking because his appetite is through the roof, he basically eating me out of house and home at this point and hes active and I believe still growing, hes at least gained back all the weight he lost when he was sick, which was almost 3 pounds! I'm not sure what food I want to trial next, most likely shrimp, the kids used to love it but it was one of the top allergens that had to be removed for the full elimination diet. After that we are left reintroing all the foods we "know" he reacts to. Not looking forward to that at all! I hate to make him sick on purpose, but we will do what we must, but it would be nice to be surprised and have him tolerate foods that he hasn't had in so long!
