GAPS Day 2

It has been an exciting 2 days over here! Day 1 of Carter's complete food transformation began well. He drank his broth and asked for more. It went far better than we had hoped. I was afraid he would refuse everything. I pureed some boiled pumpkin into his beef broth and he had pumpkin soup! His favorite meal of the day, and the most bizarre, was his Beef Frosting. Some of the fat from the broth began to cool around the edges of his cup, and the fat's super good stuff for him! I scooped it out with a spatula and he ate it right up! It looked like a kid eating frosting off a spatula!! New Food: Beef Frosting!! The night was uneventful and all in all it was a pretty mellow day. We even got to visit the farm that is supplying our beef.

Happy boy eating his pumpkin soup!

Today was certainly harder. He woke up refusing to eat or drink anything. He didn't want broth or soup or water. He wanted cereal and coconut milk, both of which he cannot have anymore. I tried chicken broth, which is more palatable. No go. I tried pumpkin, which he loved yesterday. Wouldn't touch it.  It was an uphill battle all morning. I decided to take the boiled liver and some other funky pieces of beef and puree it with some beef broth. I was hoping he would take at least one spoonful to get some nutrition in him. He not only ate the first spoonful, and then a second and a third; he devoured almost half a cup! New food of the day, Beef Pate! I am not sure yet, how this will all sit with him tonight. He is experiencing die off symptoms, as his body begins to rid itself of all the toxins and funk that have kept him from thriving. He's had headaches all day and just wanted to be held. The hardest part was hearing him say, "I'm hungry. I want eat".Yummy beef pate!

I knew these first days would be tough, but I also know that he's eating real food and as a great friend said today, Short term  for a lifetime of eating. I bought several new cups and even a bottle,  to find a way to get him to drink and stay hydrated. We even found one with his name on it! And I think my hands will smell of broth for months!

We had a warm baking soda bath, read a story and had some real giggles! Let's see what tomorrow brings!

Formula No More

How do you get a 2 year old to eat? There are lots of books on the subject and lots of methods. But how do you get an FPIES 2 year old to eat? When food hurts, what incentive do you possibly have to get them to take the nourishment they need?

When Carter began to refuse and self limit his formula, we tried everything to get him to drink. What ended up working? Honesty. We were honest with Carter and I told him that if he didn’t drink his formula, we’d have to go to the doctor and he’d have to get pokies (shots). “No. No pokies”. And he drank his formula. Was that the best way to get him to drink it, maybe not. But the all too real fear of a feeding tube scared me enough to try.

After a huge debacle with our formula order on Ebay, which never arrived, and with Carter being off formula for over 2 weeks, I finally got him to take some unflavored Elecare. I made him a smoothie one evening to calm his hunger. I put 2 scoops, mixed with coconut milk, blueberries and strawberries. It made a 12 ounce smoothie. He drank about 4 to 6 ounces and then peacefully went to sleep. Exactly 3 hours later he was up, crying owwie poop! This was the first time since I don’t know when, that he pooped in his sleep. He was up from 10:30 until 3:30. Reflux, gas, stomach cramping and pain, cold and clammy. The next day he slept a lot, which isn’t surprising considering the lack of sleep.

 So what do I make of it? An FPIES reaction exactly 3 hours after ingesting a small amount of formula. It is a noted food trialing technique to try a food, pull it for 2 weeks and try it again. The 2 week window allows the body time to decide whether the food is truly an invader or not. If the body deems it an invader, the reaction is often worse after the 2 week wait, than it was before. So now we have a confirmed FPIES reaction to formula.

The following night, Carter had a descended stomach, woke up with a fever and vomited all his food from dinner 6 hours earlier. He was shaking and shivering and coughing. It was the all too familiar reactive cough we’ve had before. It seems that the reaction lessened the strength of his immune system as well. These could have been symptoms of a cold or the second wind of the reaction. It’s hard to tell.

Carter has been off all formula for almost a month now. It has been a long hard road, but we have had some positives. I began to educate myself on the GAPS diet and the benefits of feeding Carter homemade meat and bone broths. So far, I have made him both lamb and beef broth and he’s had them without any FPIES reactions. Yesterday was a big milestone for us. Carter actually picked up his bowl of beef broth and drank it! No fighting or begging or mixing it with other foods. He’s also making some progress in the potty training department! For every setback, there’s a victory. It may only be a small victory, but it deserves all the celebration and fanfare of the biggest victory.