Asher Update

It's been about three weeks since Asher and Raj's journey to Cincinnati Children's Hospital. I wish I could tell you - either good or bad - how Asher is doing. Truthfully, the jury is still out -- and it will probably be another 2-3 months before we know for certain how he is doing.

It seems to me like we're really at the beginning of this food allergy journey. It feels to me like it's a very long, narrow, windy road and will, probably, take a long time to get a handle on this thing.

So, that said, here is what we do know:

We stopped giving him the steroid (Flovent). Truthfully, I was super concerned about not giving him the steroid because that's what helped him when he was first diagnosed. On the other hand, it feels really good to me as a parent to not give my child steroids. Plus, now we can see allergic reactions when he has them.

It does seem like he struggles a bit more now than he did. I don't like that. It really concerns me.
We also learned that he may be allergic to fish. Fish is one of those "Top 8" allergens - a very common allergy-causing food. It's also something we gave him about three times per week. We gave him fish (Tilapia) shortly after stopping the Flovent and he had a super-bad case of night sweats and he was up and down all night long. Asher no longer eats fish.

Through the allergy tests done at Cincinnati, we learned that we were giving him at least one food in each meal in which he was allergic. Turkey, fish, and the barley in his favourite Rice Chex were popular staples in Asher's diet.

Through the results of the endoscopy, we learned that the most mild of doses of Flovent does a good job in protecting Asher's esophagus. Although there was still damage, it wasn't as bad as it could be. That's good to know.

We learned that allergens lurk in the most hidden of places. For example, did you know there is corn starch in baking powder? This means that we not only have to read ingredients, but we have to read the ingredients of the ingredients. Now if that doesn't make one neurotic...

We also learned that we need to be much more vigilant about reading ingredients. Some brands of rice milk actually have soy in them (why?). So we think we're doing the right thing, only to find out that we're poisoning our child. Deep deep sigh...

So, stay tuned while we try to figure all this stuff out. We'll keep chronicling the journey, in the hopes that it will help others.