Jett was 8 months old. The allergist did some skin prick testing on Jett’s back to see if he tested positive for any IGE mediated food allergies, particularly to the foods we’d tried feeding him already. They all came back negative. I’d done some reading on the internet and found a type of food allergy called “FPIES” so I asked him if he thought it was possible. He said that babies with FPIES (Food Protein Enterocolitis Syndrome) didn’t react to things through their mother’s milk and that there were usually only one or two trigger foods, normally rice, oats, dairy, or soy. Jett also did exhibit acute FPIES reactions, which are vomit to shock. He said this was a GI issue and sent us to a local pediatric gastroenterologist. We left feeling defeated.
At 9 months old, Jett had his first visit to the GI. He had similar feelings as the allergist, that Jett reacted to so many foods compared to typical FPIES cases, but we shouldn’t feed him the foods he was reacting to. It had been two months since we’d given him food and he was still reacting to my milk. I asked the GI about removing more foods from my diet and he doubted it would work, but said I could try for a short period of time. He also requested a series of stool studies, all coming back normal, and we were asked to return in a month or so to see how Jett was doing. He’d asked that we trial elemental formula to get him to baseline (no symptoms) quickly.
I had already started eliminating soy, and I was already dairy free. Next, I cut grains, which was a struggle. We saw a significant decrease in the number of stools Jett had, but we still had a long way to go. It took a TED (total elimination diet) to get Jett to baseline. Once Jett reached baseline on my milk, the GI agreed that he had been reacting chronically to food proteins in my breastmilk. He suggested we slowly introduce foods to Jett. Four months after Jett had tried solids, we were faced with our first food trial.
Note: The introduction posts are merely to give a brief overview of why we live the way we do. I will, later, do in depth posts on topics such as FPIES, infant feeding disorders, tongue and lip ties, finding a knowledgable GI or allergist, the GAPS diet, low breastmilk supply, etc.
