Freddie's Allergies update.

The last update I did on Freddie and his allergies was about six months ago, so thought it was time we did an update!

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After Freddie saw the consultant back in September he was moved from the community dietitian team he had been seeing to the allergy clinic dietitians. We saw the head of the department back in November a few days after Freddie had his birthday. 

When we were there we discussed trying to do a wheat reintroduction starting in the christmas holidays. We had to first try with pasta, and if he didn't like that then try with bread. Freddie decided he did not like pasta anymore so we moved on to bread. He did so well with the quarter slice of bread, that we did the move onto a half a slice. Within a few days of going onto a half slice he obviously had a build up in his body and it started to react with him. 

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He started being very grumpy and getting restless in his sleep again. Then he started waking up in the early hours to poop, which is not like him at all. It was always around three or four in the morning he was waking up and that was him actually up for the day! In fact one night he ended up pooping in his pull up. We then stopped giving him the bread. 

Over the weekend that we stopped it, his sleep started to get a bit better and after a few days his stomach started to settle down. I phoned his dietitian up on the Monday morning and told them what had happened and it was confirmed he had failed the reintroduction.

He now has an appointment on 16th March to discuss the next steps, which will be trying to reintroduce Soya and eventually try again the reintroduce dairy. 

An Update On Freddie's Allergies

Freddie was diagnosed with Non Ige allergies to Dairy, Soya and Wheat back in May and has been under the dietitian team since November 2018. He has been suffering issues since he was around six months old and it took us till he was two and a half to actually see the general paediatrics at our local hospital, who were the ones that referred him to the dietitian team. 

When he went to the hospital allergy clinic back in May, he was actually discharged by the registrar with no plans. When we went to see his new dietitian back in July she was not happy that he had been discharged and decided she wanted him to go back, but this time she wanted him to see the actual consultant. 

So the first week of James being back at school, Freddie's dietitian was going to be at a meeting that the consultant was going to be at and she spoke to her about Freddie. That evening I got a phone call from the dietitian saying the consultant was calling him back in on an urgent appointment. One week later and I got the appointment in the post for the following week. 

The appointment was last Friday afternoon and it went really well. They did all the skin prick tests that he should have had back in May and they all came back negative to the Ige Allergies or to put it into non medical terms  - they came back negative for immediate reactions which we were thrilled with. 

We now know for certain his allergies are the non Ige variety or delayed reaction. Now we are waiting for an appointment with a senior dietitian to start the slow process of trying to reintroduce dairy into his diet. Even if we could get it so he could tolerate milk in cooked food it would be brilliant. 

I will do another update once we have had this appointment and what the process is going to be. At the moment we are only looking to reintroduce milk. I think it will be a long process to add in soya and maybe wheat in the next few years. 

Freddie's Allergy Issues

Over the last few years, well since around May 2016, we began to realise Freddie had issues with some foods. 

When he was weaning, we followed all the guidelines and introduced him to full fat cows milk in his foods. Then when it came to swapping him from formula to cows milk we realised there was definitely a problem. The first day we tried he had around 4oz of full fat cows milk over around 12 hours and that night he was a nightmare! He was grumbly, he had a gassy stomach, he was only sleeping for around an hour or two at the most. He then got very bunged up and didn't go for a number two for three days! We thought he wasn't ready for full fat milk, so stopped giving it to him. When we tried again a couple of months later the same things happened.

We then approached out GP who suggested as mummy cannot tolerate full fat dairy products maybe Freddie was the same, so they suggested keeping him on the 1-2 years toddler formula and then moving him to green top cows milk when he was 18 months old. 

So 18 months came and we slowly started swapping an ounce for an ounce, so replaced an ounce of formula for an ounce of green top. By the time James birthday arrived in the August, Freddie was fully on green top and we saw there was definitely a problem still. His sleep was horrendous and he wasn't going to the toilet for number twos very often and when he did he would be screaming his head off. So it was back to the GP who prescribed him movicol. Even with that he was still struggling.

Then he reached his second birthday and he was ill. He spent the whole night before his birthday vomiting, yet he was still crying for his milk. So we mixed his milk with some water. We kept giving it to him like that for a few days to make sure the bug was out of his system.

We soon noticed that he wasn't needing the movicol in is milk, so it was back to the GP who referred him to the hospital. This was when we started to suspect that he was having an issues with all things dairy, so we decided to take him dairy free to see if it helped! And it did! We moved Freddie onto almond milk to see if it helped in and after a couple of weeks he was starting to sleep a whole lot better. 

After a few months on the almond milk we decided to try him on Soya milk as we knew this could be bought in individual sized cartons, the idea was that if he settled on it we would purchase the cartons and he could take them with him once he started nursery. The day after he first tried soya milk we noticed he was having a lot of runny nappies one after another. We didn't think much of it till a few days later when he started to be very wheezy and coughing a lot. He was still having really bad nappies so I started to look online and found that the symptoms he was having matched soya allergy. So we immediately put him back onto almond milk. 

When his hospital appointment finally arrived he was in and out and told he had intolerance to dairy and soya. He was then referred to the dietitians. 

We saw the dietitian in the November who basically said keep him as he was and we would see her again a few months later. By the time he saw the dietitian again in the February we had taken him wheat free as we suspected wheat was the cause of the issues he was still having. And he was so much better! The dietitian team then referred him back to hospital where he was officially diagnosed as Non Ige Allergic to Dairy, Soya and Wheat. 

It is still very much a learning curve for us as the diagnosis is still very new, and finding things Freddie can and can't eat. If you have any tips please leave them in comments below or email us!

Freddie's Free From Top Three!

Over the last few months we have been cooking more meals from scratch with are "Free From" meals. Freddie has finally been diagnosed as Non Ige Allergic to Dairy, Soya, Wheat and Bananas. For us this means his reaction is not an instant reaction like a rash or breathing problems, his are a gradual reaction meaning they develop over a few a few hours or days. His quickest reaction has been around half an hour and his longest has been around 6-12 hours. 

Because of this we keep a cupboard of "safe" snacks. So in this post I'm going to show you are top 3 go to snacks for Freddie that can be eaten in and out of the house!

First off we have the Tesco Free from Digestive Biscuits. These are our main go to when Freddie wants a quick snack. You get ten in a packet so you can imagine how many packets we go through in a week (normally its around 3!). 

I have tried these and I cannot really tell the difference between them and the wheat variety! These are free from all Freddie's allergens so they are the perfect snack for him to  have when he comes in from playgroup. He also takes them in his pack lunch to playgroup.

Second we have Bear Yoyo's. Now these are brilliant! Both Freddie and James love them and we get through at least two boxes of these a week! Freddie again takes these in his lunch box for playgroup 

Finally we have the Free From Flapjacks. Again these are free from all Freddie's main allergens, so are perfectly safe for him to eat! You get five in a packet so Freddie can get through quiet a few of them each week. 

If you can suggest any more super snacks which are free from Wheat, Banana, Dairy and Soya then please drop us an email as we are still navigating the world of free from and always looking for things that we can buy for both boys!!