seven quick takes - the dairy free life edition

As always, Jen at Conversion Diary is hosting this fun link-up.

SO HOW HARD IS THIS DAIRY-FREE THING ANYWAY?

1.  On Wednesday David and I had a little powwow to discuss the whole elimination diet thing.  Were we going to do something radical like this?  Could we?  (Considering that I do the bulk of the the meal planning/shopping/cooking - could I?)  I think David was, perhaps, less than thrilled by the prospect, but I really pushed for it because I would so like to see an improvement in Samuel's overall health. 

2.  I made a run to the grocery store which, on top of my massive shopping expedition last week, put us over budget by quite a bit.  I spent $25 and picked up random things in more of a panic than anything else.  I knew Samuel would drink chocolate soy milk so I got a container of that on sale.  I also picked up a lot of produce, some sausages, and a container of coconut milk.  My small rural grocery store didn't have a lot, and I started to experience the first sense of 'what are we going to eat?' that I'm sure will become a regular feeling around here in the next month or more.

3.  A very strange dinner appeared on the table for Wednesday night.  We had sausages, sliced apples, olives, avacado, tomato and organic greens with dairy-free salad dressing.  Samuel happily ate the apples, sausages and olives, and with a bit of prompting ate a bit of tomato, but the avacado was a firm 'no' from the toddler, and he detested the dairy free salad dressing.  David and I ate it, but it was such a strange and unfilling meal. 

4.  Thursday's meal planning was non-existant and also showed the first signs of 'dairy-free' mistakes.  Samuel and I had porridge with chocolate soy milk on it for breakfast.  I've never used chocolate milk on cereal before, but it wasn't as gross as I expected.  I had planned on pasta with tomato sauce for Samuel's lunch, followed by jello with mandarin slices, but for myself I only packed an apple on the way to work.  I don't know why I did this, because I knew I'd be at the office for a full day, but around 2pm I was starving and at a loss as to what to eat.  The only food place near me was a convenience store, where I quickly learned that you cannot purchase dairy free food!  I ended up with a bag of plain potato chips and a sausage on a bun.  I couldn't find any dairy on the bun's ingredients list, but I didn't look too closely, I was so hungry I knew I needed to eat something fast.  There were no ingredients listed for the sausages, so I just ate it.

5.  Thursday night I got home from work and tried to throw together a 'quick' dairy free supper for the family.  To tide Samuel over for supper I gave him some sliced salami to eat, which I later discovered contained dairy.  We had baked rainbow trout, spinach and sauteed fennel, and again Samuel had jello and mandarins for dessert.  I found myself having a real issue with the 'no butter on my vegetables' problem.  After discussing with several friends, I'm no closer to a solution since we have such a limited grocery budget and no access to traditional 'health food stores' around here, and so no chance of picking up a vegan option.  Samuel ate everything, though, and I packed up the leftovers for his lunch on Friday; at least I'd have food for him one more day.

6.  Friday, early morning.  Is my stomach-ache, the one that has me writing seven quick take at 3am, because I ate so much meat and processed foods yesterday?  Is it a dairy sensitivity myself?  Questions start to roll through your head constantly.

7.  I hoped that the diaper situation would improve at least a little, and it seems to have slightly.  No more mucus, no blood streaks, a normal brown colour.  He's still got a mild temperature, but he does have a cold so I'm associating it with that.  Of course, the eczema is still very much present, and he's still scratching at himself a lot, not to mention his stools are still very loose.  But they aren't liquid.  Just an overly hopeful Mama this early in the game?  Maybe.

Going Dairy-Free with a Toddler

When Samuel was born one of the first things the nurse said to me was "Oh!  He's tongue-tied!"  which meant nothing at all to a morphine-addled mama until it was explained to me that through the crazy genetics of one side of our family my son's tongue had developed attached to the bottom of his mouth.  He could move the sides, and to a certain extent the tip, but he couldn't stick it out.  My main concern was 'can he still nurse', which he quickly proved was high on his own personal list of priorities (where it has stayed now for, oh, 19 months.  Sigh) and once that was handled I wondered if he would have speech problems, which a quick trip to a speech therapist told me was unlikely, and even if it happened, could be remedied.

So when Samuel started projectile vomiting, we assumed it had something to do with his air intake while he nursed because of the tongue tie.  We brought him to the doctor, twice, and both times were assured that he was not 'projectile vomiting', just throwing up violently for more than a foot (which is different, apparently) and not to worry.  Our lives revolved around his feedings.  Everything in our house was covered in sheets.  I had to punp before feeding so he didn't get too much milk too quickly, and then feed him the pumped milk by bottle once he was done.  It was time consuming, but we had been told not to worry, so we tried not to.

At around six months we started to offer him food, but he was adament that solids were NOT on the agenda.  I wrote a post a while back about the difficulties of getting the Public Health nurse to understand that we weren't starving our child.  Samuel would nurse, and that was pretty much it, until about 11 months, when I really started to 'push' solids for fear he wasn't getting enough nutrition.

Both of these factors, his vomiting and reluctance to eat solids, as well as the vomiting that came after he ate solids, didn't clue me in to anything specifically wrong, I still assumed it was his tongue tie combined with a touchy tummy and a general stubborn streak.  But his diapers started to worry me.  Although he's 19 months old he has very rarely had a solid poop, what I would consider a 'grown-up poop'.  His bowel movements are filled with partially digested food, smell awful, and are liquid.  And he's sick a LOT.  He has been on antibiotics probably 10 times in his short life, in and out of the hospital emerg. room, back and forth to the doctor over and over again.  His nose is always runny, he's always coughing and phlemy, he's got a constant diaper rash that runs the scale from 'mild pinkness' to 'red and bleeding skin.'  He's got eczema on his legs.

I tried all the diaper creams, switched him from cloth to disposables, bathed him more frequently, then less frequently, then without soap, then with anti-itch soap...I kept him hydrated, then I tried less fibre and fruit, then pre-mashing his food so it would digest better...I tried so many things, but nothing has seemed to work.

Last week I told David "I think perhaps this is indicative of something bigger.  Maybe a food sensitivity"  And David agreed that an elimination diet was the way to go, and since I'm still nursing, that means a diet for Sam and mama.  And so here we are, day one of no diary.

I chose to start with milk products because of a few factors.  First off, I know people who have children with dairy sensitivities, and some of the symptoms sounded similar.  Secondly, dairy is fairly recognizeable (although I learned from my first dairy-free grocery store visit yesterday, it is hidden in a lot of foods).  Thirdly, it's a common sensitivity, so the chance that dairy is the issue is greater.  And finally, we eat a lot of dairy, so he would have had it frequently enough for it to provide this length and extent of reaction.  Peanuts, for example, we eat very infrequently, so cutting those out would be pointless.

Anyway, I'll do my best to keep up a post every once in a while about our new milk-free lifestyle.  I have NO IDEA what to make for meals, now.