So we suspected that soy was an issue and were staying casein free and B was getting better but wasn't what anybody would call a happy baby. So I decided to try a Total Elimination Diet. On the TED, you cut your foods down to the bare minimum and the least allergenic foods and then slowly add things back in and watch for reactions. I started by eating only pears, rice, turkey, sweet potatoes, potatoes, green and yellow squash, salt, and pepper. I was very surprised with the amount of variety and flavor I was able to achieve with only those few foods and I didn't feel like I was truly missing out on anything. The trouble was with the effort I needed to put forth to feed myself. There was no slapping together a sandwich and you can only eat so much organic puffed rice cereal with rice milk so I was left peeling and cooking for every meal. I don't mind cooking all that much and have a family of 6 so it's not new, it was just hard knowing that I had absolutely no easy grab and go foods.
While on this diet, B was able to heal so much and it was so exciting to see my real baby appear from behind the cloud of pain she had been in! Her poop started to look like normal baby poop and smell like normal breast fed baby poop. She was relaxed and smiling all the time, well, except for tummy time. Tummy time still pisses her off. That's not a food issue. The Total Elimination Diet truly showed us that food issues were really the key to getting this child well and happy once and for all. The downsides of the TED were twofold for me. First, I started it while we were travelling out of state and there was no way to continue on this diet while staying in hotels and eating at restaurants. Secondly, I started to feel like garbage. I felt like a floaty balloon, sort of light headed and dizzy all the time and overall not well. So I decided to start eating normally again but be vigilant about keeping all forms of soy and dairy out of my diet.
As I said before, there were setbacks when I would eat something without thinking about it or naively thinking there was no reason for there to be soy in it. It truly took me a long time to get it to sink in that there is soy in everything. Meats, dairy, soda, breads, sauces, seasonings, and anything in a jar, can, bag, or box. Soy is a very cheaply grown and processed product in the US so it is used as a filler in thousands of products you see every day. If you have a food label anywhere near you, odds are there is some form of soy listed, whether it's obvious to you or not. Have you ever read the words 'natural flavors' or 'spices' or 'seasonings'? Those are all terms that hide soy and dairy in many products and the only way to know for sure is to call the manufacturer of each product and ask for your specific set of allergies/sensitivities. I don't know about you but in this house ain't nobody got time for that! Is anyone else starting to feel a little annoyed by the labeling practices in this country?
But even when I was being good and reading everything, I still didn't have the happy easy baby that I had enjoyed while on the TED. B was still giving us green mucus poops and staying up all night kicking her little legs trying to release the huge amount of gas she had. I would be able to force out a few large toots and her whole body would relax and she would fall back to sleep only to start kicking her legs again an hour later. When I saw visible blood in her stool, I knew we needed to stop hoping that gas drops would fix things and get some more answers. So off to the doctor we went!
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