Okay, I said I was just going to have this blog be recipes and reviews, but I need to write this, because this will change future recipes and reviews....I'm pretty sure my little one can't handle soy, so now he is gluten free. dairy free, and soy free. :(
When I first took him off of gluten, I knew dairy was a problem, because his behaviors and sensory issues really hadn't improved a whole lot. I knew he did had a gluten problem, though, because of the 4 days of 'withdrawal' hell we experienced when we took him off the gluten. So, when we got the results back from Enterolab we immediately took him off the dairy. He did so much better that first week, he was happy, goofy even, he had normal bowel movements, was eating great, he was a normal kid, finally! But, the next week he started getting cranky, and having more of what I called bipolar moments, where his mood would suddenly and drastically change. I dismissed it as him being a 3-year old, come on 3-year olds can be quite moody, right? Well, by the next week, it was obvious it was more than him being misbehaving toddler. His behaviors turned aggressive and even violent. It truly frightened me, I know that something had changed in him and that's when I realized that we had easily tripled his soy consumption since going dairy-free. He was drinking soy milk, eating soy margarine, we were deep frying chicken nuggets and corn dogs in vegetable oil (soybean oil)...the list goes on. I was literally sick, what had I done to my baby!?!? Within minutes of having this sick realization, my sitter called me to tell me that something was wrong with him, that they really could not handle him anymore...could it be the soy? That was enough to confirm for me that (1) I wasn't imagining his behavior and (2) it was soy.
So, we have a well child checkup on Friday, and I'm going to be bringing all this up with the doc then, but in the meantime we're cutting out the soy. We started the new diet on Saturday, and my baby is back, he's happy again (yes, he still has his 3-year old tantrums, but they aren't murderous outbursts now) and he's back to being a normal kid. I really am hoping and praying that this is the last intolerance we have to deal with.
That is exactly what we went through when we discovered that soy was also a problem. A few weeks off dairy went well, and then he started having major health/behavioral problems again.
ReplyDeleteFYI, the most inexpensive rice milk I have found is Pacific brand. We order it by the case at Smith's Marketplace and when you order in bulk you get a 10% discount. It is usually $2.19 for a quart, but it goes on sale for $1.50 a quart fairly frequently so if you watch for the sale and order in bulk you get a pretty good deal. (They don't give the 10% discount if it's already on sale, though).
It doesn't have nearly as many calories or vitamins as soy milk though. At first we mixed a little canola oil or coconut milk with it to give him extra calories. We also give him vitamin supplements.