Last post I shared with you where I found myself ten years ago due to extreme food and environmental allergies. My situation felt very hopeless until I was introduced to Reliv. Do not fear readers, I will not be posting about Reliv often, but it is an essential component of my journey back to health, so you will hear about it from time to time, and how our family benefits from it.
I was able to get pregnant the first month we tried, and had a wonderfully healthy pregnancy. I even had great bloodwork after a mandatory c-section for our first daughter Valerie's birth. She was breech, and this meant that from day one, we knew things were going to be a bit different for her.
At three months, Valerie began breaking out in hives during feedings. I was breastfeeding exclusively, so I was perplexed. I had heard that if your child is breastfed, she should not have allergies.
Valerie proved this theory to be incorrect!
At seven months old, she had her first anaphylactic reaction to dairy and had to be hospitalized. They used strong steroids on her, and her skin, which by this point had broken out in eczema all over, cleared up beautifully that week. As soon as the steroid course finished, though, her skin erupted into worse lesions than she had had before.
We took her to a chiropractor and a cranial sacral therapist. I was trying elimination diets, keeping food diaries, and giving her all kinds of different solid foods that seemed to pass straight through her.
By the end of the year we were sent to a gastrointerologist, after the pediatric allergist and the dermatologist had exhausted their ideas and prescriptions. He diagnosed her with an inability to digest protein, and severely atopic. She was losing weight, and having diarrhea every day.
We were given a prescription for Neocate, which cost about $300 a month. We took her off the Reliv completely, (by this point I had weaned her) and we saw her become lethargic, her nose began running constantly, and she got constipated.
After a month of this, in desperation, I put some Reliv into her bottle with the Neocate. We saw the runny nose go away in two days, her energy and happiness came back, she began to poop again (!), and her skin gradually began to clear. Over the next months, we were able to slowly introduce solid food again, starting with rice, and vegetables, some fruits, and then gradually wean her off the Neocate once she had gained back enough weight.
We are are so thankful that she did not suffer any developmental delays, as we knew this was a possibility. By the time she was 2 1/2 her skin was completely clear.
Over the next years, we saw her grow into a child who is faced every day with challenges, but has overcome so much.
Asthma is something she deals with, but on a very low level. Her symptomatic inhaler is needed every time she
gets a cold, but only using the bare minimum of the medicine to breathe easier.
Although she is still very allergic to wheat, dairy, eggs, beef, lamb and all nuts, Each year she seems to get a
bit stronger and a little less sensitive. And her skin is clear! Doctors say she will probably never grow out of these allergies, but we
have hope that she will as her immune system continues to strengthen.
Reliv is a part of her daily routine as well as the emergency drink when she has a reaction to some hidden
ingredient. The reaction goes away within twenty minutes after having a shake.
Valerie was the first of our four children. We are a gluten free house, and have seen that help all of us with various complaints. The children are all dairy intolerant, although my husband consumes dairy products, and I eat dairy occasionally.
Why blog now? Because I know what it is like to be scrolling through pages and pages of websites, asking, "am I the ONLY one who deals with a child with allergies to so many things?" or "What can we have for dinner that we can ALL eat?"
When Valerie was 4 years old, she was outside in her Grandma's garden singing to herself and loving the sunshine and flowers. She came running up to me and said, "Mama, my life is true!" And so it is.
My hope in writing this blog is that, in your hardest moments, you can realize that there is always hope, and a reason to look up and be thankful for the flowers.
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