Changes Coming!

We have known for the last 3ish years that Brayden has an allergy to peanuts. The three times in her life she has had them so has had a reaction of sorts. The first time she was exposed, she had a peanut butter cookie. After a few bites the skin around her mouth broke out in a rash. The second time was at Easter and she got her hands on a peanut butter candy egg. Within about 10 minutes of eating it she began vomiting. The third time she had a bite of Butterfinger ice cream and within a few minutes was vomiting. So, needless to say we try our best to keep peanuts out of her diet. We have always kept PB in our home as her daddy and brother have a great love for it. Also, Brayden has obvious outdoor allergies and has had a number of breathing treatments in her life. When we moved to our new town we began seeing a new doctor who is also a very sweet church member. At Brayden's 5 year appointment I expressed my concern over her allergies - both peanut and outdoor. - and my concern about her being a possible asthmatic. (I have asthma.) Dr. Stephanie took my concerns very seriously and ordered a blood test that would test for the basic food and outdoor allergens. 

Fast forward to Monday when we got the results of the allergy test. I was not too surprised by the results of the outdoor allergies - she is highly allergic to cat dander (not surprised) and mountain cedar. She is also allergic to mold, dust mites and bermuda grass. She has begun taking a nasal spray every evening to hopefully help with those allergies. 

I was completely floored by the results of the food allergy testing. We discovered she has a Class 6 allergy to peanuts (translates: off the charts), a Class 3 allergy to soy and Class 1 allergy to wheat. WHAT? She has eaten soy and wheat her entire life and has never had any physical reactions to those foods. The peanut allergy scares me because of its severity and I am thankful that the 3 times she has had it hasn't been as bad as it could have been. Dr. Stephanie has prescribed us an Epi Pen and we have one at home and one at school. 

After I heard the results I began googling and trying to get all of the information I could on the soy and wheat allergies. Then I proceeded to go through our pantry, cabinets and fridge and was floored by my discovery. Soy is in EVERYTHING? It's pretty easy to figure out what wheat is in - breads, crackers, etc. But soy is in EVERYTHING!!! (Did I already say that?) Because soy is so cheap food manufacturers put it in EVERYTHING. It is in many foods we eat in it's bean form, powder or oil form. (After further research I have discovered that soy is really not good for you - puts unnecessary hormones into our food, ultimately into our bodies.) 

After my initial freak out moment it became a wake up call to me that we need to change our eating habits so that we can make life better for our daughter. Even though we haven't seen any outside physical reactions, we may never know what is going on inside her sweet little body. And if it's been like this her entire life she may not know a difference either. Since Tuesday, Brayden has not consumed anything with wheat or soy. The rest of us have, as I have a hard time throwing away ALL of the food in the pantry. We are going to slowly eliminate it from the rest of our bodies. Even though we may not have an allergy to it - it surely won't hurt!!

Brayden is handling this like a champ. She came home from school on Monday and I tried to explain to her what we had learned and what it would mean. The boys were eating graham cracker sticks for a snack and I thought - what does it matter? She has been eating something like that her whole life, why not one more day? When Kenny came in he asked why she was eating them and I said because I felt sorry for her and thought one more day wouldn't hurt. I said he could be the one to tell her no! :) Well, he did. And you know what she said? Okay dad, I'll just eat some apple slices because I really like apples. Well that was easy!

Moving forward we have lots of questions. I am worried about what to do about meat and eggs. If the animal we are eating (sorry) was fed soy, will traces of soy be in the meat we eat? The same with chicken who are fed soy...will it be in our eggs? Also, is she allergic to tree nuts? We'd like to have her tested for that as almond flour can be used in place of regular flour. Kenny's dad is very allergic to coconut...is she? Also, Dr. Stephanie has suggested that we not have PB in our house anymore. Because it is so aromatic we don't want to risk an exposure that way. So, Kennan had his last PB&J sandwich for lunch yesterday. He cried and I feel so awful for him. (He has probably had a PB&J almost every day in his school lunch for the last 2 years.) But it's another reason to test her for other nut allergies so we can have another kind of "butter" to replace the PB. Kenny took his jar of peanuts up to the church...so we are officially PB free at our house. And that's another question for the doctor-does her school need to go peanut free?( I know that the cafeteria doesn't use it in any of their foods and snacks in the classroom cannot have PB in them. But students are allowed to bring PB in their own lunches.) We have been allowing the kids to buy their lunch once a week and bring from home the other 4 days. From now on Brayden will not buy, until we can figure out how to handle that.  Another question is should we have Grayson tested for peanuts? He hasn't ever had anything with peanuts because of what we knew about Brayden.

I am mainly documenting this for myself and Brayden. In a few years we will be able to look back on this time in our lives and so how far we've come. We will all hopefully much healthier too!