A New (and Confusing) Beginning

Hello and welcome to the wonderful world of food allergies.  My name is Tinea and I'll be your guide through this journey.  Although, if I may be so blunt...I have no idea what I'm doing at the moment.  I'm lost. Utterly.

Herein lies the problem. I am gluten-intolerant and have been living an (almost) gluten-free lifestyle for the past two years.  Yes, I have breakdowns along the way when I can't bear going without the wonderful things I simply cannot find gluten-free (mainly white bread and Chinese food) and I stray.  I eat things I shouldn't.  And I suffer the horrible consequences of doing so.  However, I have suffered for so long with the terrible symptoms gluten causes me that I sometimes see it as the cost for having good food.  Gluten food.

But then food allergies hit me where it hurts the most.  My child.

My daughter started having almost the identical symptoms I suffered with for so long and I began to panic.  Was it gluten too?  We both went right back on a strict gluten-free diet and I was so much better.  I didn't have stomach pains or upsets, my rashes started to heal, my moods evened out and I started sleeping like a baby.

Ally's symptoms, however, became worse.

She began to quit eating and, total, she lost eight pounds in less than two months.  She couldn't go through normal daily life without making numerous trips to the bathroom.  On a car trip, we had to pull over three or four times and she had to go in the woods "like the animals do".  At the worst, she was doubled over in pain sitting on the potty and crying so hard because her tummy was cramping and she couldn't take it.  She just gave up.

After that last week where she had no relief and virtually quit eating, we called the doctor.  I was bracing for the battery of tests for her that I've been through, such as blood tests, an EGD, a colonoscopy...you never know.  Her doctor, however, wanted to try something so simple at first.  No dairy.

Could it be something so simple as lactose intolerance?

Yes.  It could be.

After a week of dairy-free living, Ally was back to being herself.  She had an appetite, chatted incessantly, was hyper like a normal seven year old should be.  Her color even improved and we all, once again, saw her rosy cheeks and sparkly eyes come back to life.   It was great!! More importantly, she was not having an ounce of pain and her bathroom trips were cut dramatically.  She was living normally again.

This is where we are currently.  Ally cannot have diary or whey.  I cannot have gluten.

Now I ask you.  What are we going to eat?  Anyone who lives with a food allergy knows specialty foods are expensive!  So here's the next huge question:  What can we afford to eat?

This is a journal of what we are going to figure out along the way and how we are going to make this work.  I'm sure we will have slip up's and we will document each and every one.  More importantly, we are going to have many, many successes and we are going to figure out how to live normally gluten-free and diary-free.  In the same house.  We are going to live better without.