Okay, now that that's over, I wanted to throw out a new idea for our family. As many of you now know, we are so excited at the changes we've seen in Taryn's skin since we switched to dye and perfume free detergent. Every day it looks better and I just can't help rubbing my baby's SOFT skin! She no longer feels like a lizard, as my friend put it. Oh, it is so much better.
But I've still been worried about how much she's been vomitting lately. Last week, she threw up on 4 different days. Just threw up, no other symptoms, nothing after she vomited. I know she's not sick and I attribute it to allergies because I can tell by her behavior and mood that she feels great but just needs to get something out.
The other night, as I was saying my nighttime prayers, I was thinking about her throwing up and her improved skin and suddenly thought, "What if she's allergic to the dyes in food?" So for the last 3 days, I've been racking my brain to remember what she ate before throwing up. I knew that she had eaten fruit snacks on Sunday before throwing up, so I could easily connect that to food dyes. Then I remembered she had fruit snacks on Thursday too (and threw up Thursday night) when we bought them. And on Friday night, she had Smarties at Keara's birthday party (and threw up Saturday morning). But that didn't explain the 9 times she threw up on my birthday. Then, tonight, as we were getting the girls ready for bed, I suddenly remembered what I had as my birthday cake. Crown Jewel. With 5 different flavors of Jello. Of course, Taryn couldn't eat the finished product, but we gave her the plain jello. AND, after she threw up in the morning, we gave her more jello because we thought it might feel good to her since we didn't know why she had thrown up. After that, she threw up another 5 times.
Could it be she's allergic to food dyes? I've done a little reading about it tonight and found the 2 most common dyes people are allergic to are Red 40 and Yellow 5. So I checked the fruit snacks and jello. Sure enough, the ONLY food dyes in both are Red 40 and Yellow 5. Hmm...It's interesting too that if she is allergic to dyes, they flared after being heavily exposed to dyes in the Jello. The same thing happened with eggs. She could tolerate foods with eggs in them. But once she had straight eggs, the allergy became very pronounced and she could no longer tolerate food with eggs in it anymore.
If she is allergic or intolerant to food dyes, it will certainly make this kid the healthiest kid we all know. She will not be able to eat ANYTHING processed. Good for her. Hard for me, just because I really have to be creative and make everything homemade, but worth it.
I also don't think she's allergic to milk anymore. She's snuck some yogurt and cheese this week (off Keara's leftovers) and had zero reaction to both. Yesterday, Keara, Taryn, and Braden were all put back on insurance (YEAH!) and T's allergist is no longer in our network. So, that means changing allergists which also usually means repeat testing to get the new office up to speed. I'm looking forward to that. Unfortunately the closest doctor that I feel good about is in Tuscon...
Anyway, I'm hoping we can get to the root of Taryn's struggles so we can help her. I'm becoming more and more of a believer that the closer food is to the source the better. I love God made foods!!!
5 comments:
Hooray for figuring out the food dyes thing. And really not a bad thing since none of us really should be eating that stuff anyway. We just tossed a bunch of Jello packages last week because the ingredients had thoroughly grossed me out. I think Taryn deserves a picture on this post. We miss her face! and oohh I'd love to hold that super soft skin :)
Congrats on figuring out the dye allergy! With Joe's allergy I'm constantly on the look out for allergy friendly products. I thought maybe I'd pass on this website:
http://www.cherrybrookkitchen.com/index.php
They have dairy and egg free cake mixes, cookie mixes, pancake mixes, etc. Since they are all natural they don't have any dyes added to them. I've seen them in a few grocery stores out here so maybe you'll have luck in your area. Their allergy support link has some decent websites, too.
And, have you tried going to a Trader Joe's? They aren't nearly as pricey as most health food stores. Although some of their prices are a little over the top, so you do have to be careful. I have found they can help me not make everything from scratch but still be healthy and meet our dietary guidelines.
Oh, boy. I have noticed with some of my children they get cranky after food dye. But it shows up in the weirdest places! You're right though she is going to be healthy, maybe it's a blessing in disguise for your entire family.
You're my smartest friend I think. And that's actually cool your have motivation to keep artificial coloring out of your diet-- or at least it WOULD be cool if you weren't having to keep most everything ELSE out of her diet as well.
You are going to be one amazing cook by the time your family is grown! I had an idea...I have a friend who can't sweat when she gets too hot. If she over heats she throws up as a way for her body to cool down. Maybe it has something to do with the heat.
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