You are What You Eat (Part 1)

Food is a bit of a mystery to me, both in taste and nutrition. Whereas I used to be a slave to tantalizing my tastebuds, now I sit in awe of what foods or food combinations will/will not aggravate my kids' skin or lungs.

With my daughter, I followed common pediatric advice, fed her baby rice cereal at exactly six months (yes, video recorder ready), then jarred food exactly a few weeks later, nursed for almost exactly a year and before she was a year old, she was eating much of what grown-ups ate. We took her out to restaurants and shared our food with her. I did not restrict any foods, except cow's milk due to her earlier allergy. She drank buckets of soy milk after she turned 1 and I stopped nursing her, so there was a lot of Cheerios, whole grain cereals of all kinds, pretzels, toddler gummies, cookies, etc. Then one day she got a cold and ended up crying all night. Next morning, she could not even walk. Frightened, I carried her to the doctor's office and rode the ambulance with her to the hospital. Her chest was so tight, she could not breathe. The pediatrician called it, "restrictive airway disease," which was a nice way of saying she has "asthma"; grace was given to her because she was only 16 months old. But two months later, the same thing happened, even though I was armed with drugs. She ended up at the hospital again, because neither I nor the pediatrician had enough drugs open up her chest and she had to be monitored. Then she was labeled as an "asthmatic."

I never suspected food had anything to do with it. Daddy has seasonal allergies/migraines, an uncle from my side has asthma, so it must be hereditary and I should just surrender to my fate. But during one innocent evening of pasta 'n pesto (an easy favorite for both of us), I heard my DD wheezing as she ate her dinner. She was not sick, so it seemed odd. So I put my ears to her chest to make sure and yes, she was definitely wheezing. That was when I started to suspect wheat.

The following months was psychologically challenging as I sought to remove wheat from her diet. The pasta was relatively painless, as there is brown rice pasta substitute (although I didn't like paying the new price). But it was the bread and everything else that made life difficult. Thankfully, my daughter was adaptable and I had trained her to eat whatever she is served. It was the beginning of my new role as a "Food Nazi Mom."

A few months after I started using the drugs, I gave her Lyprinol, small capsules filled with soybean oil and the oil of New Zealand, green-lipped mussels. It is supposed to have super omega-3 power, which means it is super anti-inflammatory. She was already taking a teaspoon of Carlson's cod liver oil and it alone didn't seem to help. With the Lyprinol, my DD would keep the caps in her mouth and let the fishy taste dissolve, swoosh around her tongue. Now she can swallow them without water. I would get exceedingly upset when she would drop a capsule or two on the floor, because it cost more than $.50 per capsule and I was fearful of dirt/dust, because for all I knew, it could my poor housekeeping that caused her breathing problems.

Since my DD only wheezed when she got sick (and at times it was difficult to tell if her shortness of breath was a stuffy nose or wheezing), I started to reason - what if I can help prevent her from getting sick as often? Everyone is concerned about their immune systems, especially during the cold/flu season, I just have more incentive to be concerned.

A few late nights on google "chasing rabbits" as a friend puts it, I discovered that the steroidal drug (Pulmicort) suppresses the immune system. No wonder my DD was sick so often and every time she got sick, she wheezed and it took her over a month to get over her colds sometimes. Her immune system wasn't working, because the drugs were preventing it from working by stopping the inflammation; inflammation is part of a healthy immune system. But for asthmatics, there is too much inflammation (immune system attacking itself, aka, "autoimmune disease") and if I took her off the drugs, then she would not be able to breathe. Six and a half dozen of the other, what is a mother to do?

I waited for a cheery season and just gave her Albuterol (no Pulmicort) whenever she had a cold, plus some over-the-counter cold medicine (which I no longer do, since I switched to homeopathic remedies). Albuterol is what's known as the "rescue medicine"; it is not a steroid, but a drug that opens up the lungs. I am not clear as to the side effects of it, but it was necessary as long as her chest would get overfilled with phlegm preventing her from breathing. I stopped the regular doses of Pulmicort/ Flovent HFA (which was once a day throughout the year, twice a day during winter months, which made no sense since her asthma started in the summer). She developed eczema on her legs and arms soon after the steroids stopped, which I learned was common. I applied all sorts of lotions and potions and my DD scratched and scratched, while I continued to try and boost her immune system, giving her every superfood and vitamin known to man.

At the age of 2, Alexa ate/took with my reason for feeding her this stuff in red:

• oatmeal from steel-cut oats with blackstrap molasses, virgin coconut oil, chopped figs and sometimes apricots

virgin coconut oil - has breast milk properties (lauric acid)
figs & molasses - calcium (crucial for non-dairy diets)
apricots - alkaline fruit, but only when fresh (didn't know it then - all dried fruit is acidic)

• rice congee with meats (grassfed ground beef, regular chicken) or fish (wild salmon, cod, halibut, flounder), chopped onions, chopped/shredded vegetables (broccoli, carrots, anything in the fridge)

My mother made this dish regularly when I was growing up - I "improved" upon her version with some brown rice (need white rice for glutinous consistency), added veggies and varying the meats/fish.

• Cheerios with rice milk every other day
• fruit & veggies whenever, wherever I could fit it in
• eggs
  

• Carlson's cod liver oil - anti-inflammatory, good for skin, essential fat that our bodies can't make, vitamin D, which is important for winter months
  

• Daily multi gummies from Costco (now she takes one with enzymes) - you never know what is missing in your child's diet, could be just a scare for vitamin companies to make you buy them but then again, it's not a lot to pay for a little insurance and peace of mind

Her wheezing/asthma seemed to have gotten better, but she developed eczema patches on her arm and leg, which I learned was a result of going off steroids. I had no idea what do about it and it wasn't until she was almost 3 that the patches went away.

The good news was that she was not sick as often as she was between the age of 1 and 2. Her immune system seemed to have gotten stronger, which you can attribute to age or the changes I made in her diet. It all depends on what you believe. Really. There is never a definitive explanation and even if there was, you need faith to do what it is you're doing in order for it to yield results. Isn't that how Faith works? We just Believe. I could worry less about her finally. I had given her so many drugs in the past (Dimetapp, Tyenol, etc.) and she reacted negatively to the ever-popular echinacea (made her wheeze), I felt utterly paralyzed for a long time.