To start things off, I want to paint a little (but probably verbose) picture of what our lives have been like the last year. Right now our son, we'll stick to calling him TK, is 14 months old. He was a very healthy baby born in May of 2009 and has always been extremely mellow and easy going. He always had bad skin. From the day after he was born, he just always had rashy, red and bumpy skin. When he was six weeks old his right ear broke out in a very nasty rash. My husband and I jumped on the internet and immediately self-diagnosed him with eczema. Since this was a Sunday, we took him to the doctor the next morning, and luckily, for his sake, the rash had subsided. Our doctor told us not to worry, that it was just a newborn rash. We weren't very convinced, eczema does run in the family. So over the next few weeks his break outs became more frequent and severe. At the time I was breast feeding, but when he was about 7 weeks old I went back to work and my milk supply was just not holding up to the appetite of this little one. So by 10-11 weeks he was on formula. Sometime in July, I believe, our doctor finally diagnosed him with eczema. In August we switched his formula to Allimentum, an expensive hypoallergenic formula. Unfortunately, we didn't see any improvement with his skin so in September we switched him to Soy. Immediately we saw him clear up a little, but it only lasted for a week or two and then he went right back to his terrible state.
I'm going to hop out of that schpeal for a second and describe his eczema; I'll post a couple pictures as well, so you can see a little of what we dealt with. He bled daily, and oozed the rest of the time. On frequent occasions, I had to soak his leg in the morning to peal his pajamas off since they had gotten stuck to the back of his calf during the night from all the bleeding and oozing. We often wrapped his arms and legs in gauze after we lathered him up with Aquaphor. That was the only thing that would ease the itching a little. We tried so many things, but Aquaphor was the only thing that helped. Our doctor scared us out of using an over the counter steroid cream, her philosophy was to "wait it out." He usually had large gashes taken out of his face from his scratching. Anytime he had a little skin exposed we had to have socks on his hands so he wouldn't scratch. He slept with socks on his hands until he was about 10 months old. So to sum it up, he was terribly broken out from head to toe and our doctor wouldn't do anything about it.
Now to go back to where I was. In November, our doctor FINALLY gave us a prescription for Triamcinolone, a steroid cream we could use from his neck down. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! He cleared up in about a month on his body, but we were told not to use it on his face. She also told us it was NOT caused by a food allergy since we never saw any improvement when we switched his formula so many times, but was some sort of auto-immune thing that he would hopefully grow out of. So we found our own dermatologist who was FABULOUS! He gave us so many things to use to clear up his face. We were on a regimen of the Triamcinolone, Epiceram, Lipo Cream, and Elidel. We took his binky away when he was 10 months to help the area around his mouth clear up. At his 9 month well-check, our doctor was concerned about his lack of growth. He fell from the 75% in weight to the 5% in just a few months. So she did a little blood work and diagnosed him with Renal Tubular Acidosis. We then started a daily dose of Bicitra, basically an electrolyte booster. As we introduced more and more food, he started throwing up almost daily. But we could not narrow it down to anything in particular. Knowing what we know now, it makes sense! He was allergic to everything! When he was on the verge of his first birthday, we decided to change pediatricians. Our new doctor is absolutely amazing and is the one who tested him for his allergies, among other things. Since getting rid of all of his allergens we have seen so much improvement. He is happier, growing and his eczema is almost a thing of the past! He has not thrown up after eating for more than a month!
We feel SO lucky that we never had any serious reactions, like going into anaphylactic shock. I feel 100% excited to embark on this new path. I have to totally re-learn how to cook, but so far it has been positive! I have already found a couple of great recipes that I will share! I hope that you all can hang in there with me while I figure all this out. I'll do my best to keep the writing to a minimum, which is something that is terribly hard for me, as you can see! :)
This was taken when he was about 6 months old. This was just how our little boy looked! Poor guy!
This was after a bad reaction to a Tide Stain Release Capsule. A pair of his pajamas got thrown in the load and I didn't know, until I saw his face that morning! This picture is really hard for me to look at, because it brings back that heartache I felt.
Here he is at the Christmas party of 2009! Cute little thing!
And this is our little boy today! Look at that beautiful skin!
