Arrggh! Gluten! Or was it casein? Maybe it was soy.

Maybe it was a combination, I have no clue right now.  What I do know is that I'm tired and I'm grumpy. Not the best way to start a post.  

But, I hope to help people understand why I won't give in to just a little bite of this or a tiny smidge of that when it comes to our dietary modifications.  Why I won't just "indulge" once in a while.  Some people have even rolled their eyes at me over this issue, particularly as it relates to the Os.  I get the sense that they think I'm depriving our children of some fantastical version of childhood in which a birthday party without ice cream cones and birthday cake is tantamount to child abuse.

Yes, it would be a LOT easier to not adhere to our dietary modifications.  Heck, it would be  lot easier if we followed only our dietary modifications most of the time.  It would take a lot less planning and cooking and packing for a day at the beach.  It would take a lot less time figuring out clever ways to help my children feel confident about their food choices as they watch their friends eat cheesy fish-shaped crackers and cups of yogurt.  It would take a lot less creativity and energy in distracting them with our own snacks at the library story hour instead of letting them grab a bag of crunchy-munchy-sugary-gluten-thingies like the other kids.

I'll digress more into how we got to our current dietary modifications in a post soon - when I'm out of this food infraction induced haze - but for now, let me share with you a few of the reasons why I will not budge on our dietary restrictions.  

Here are some of the symptoms we can experience after a food infraction:

Little O

• Quite foul and seemingly painful flatulence.
  
• Gastrointestinal distress, including acid reflux, manifest by his writhing and restlessness and the gurgling (boiling?) sounds in his abdomen and throat.
  
• At least one sleepless night with intermittent crying and constant restlessness. Often multiple restless nights.
  
• Constipation.  This kid poops like clockwork - nearly to the hour each day.  When he misses an event, I know we've had one of our banned foods (if, by some miracle, we didn't already spend a sleepless night prior to his skipping a bowel movement).  When he finally does pass a stool, it is painful and much harder than his typical stool.  Often less volume of stool as well.
  
• Scaly scalp.  Some would still call this cradle cap at age 2, I call it "Dammit - we got glutened again!" 
• Patchy red rash. Sometimes on his torso, sometimes on his bottom, sometimes his inner thighs.  Sometimes multiple locations.  The photo below hardly does it justice, but I am a novice photographer and cannot seem to get the settings to align such that the camera can capture the raging redness of the thousands of tiny bumps across his torso.  Maybe it's eczema or other dermatitis.  I don't really care the exact diagnosis because I know it is directly related to a food infraction.
  
  

Big O

• Excessive and foul flatulence.
• Constipation rears its ugly head and can result in a big set back.  He can be sent into the downward spiral of withholding, which can take us weeks to recuperate from.
  
• Cranky, irritable, moody, and at times, tantrumy.
  
• Restless at night.
• Frequent urination; cloudy urine; urine pH is off.
• Night-time bed wetting.  He's 4.5 years old and has been able to stay dry all night for some time now.  I can confidently say that when he wets the bed (our bed. . .) it nearly always correlates to a dietary infraction.
• Nasal congestion. (His persistent nasal congestion disappeared within a week of our eliminating gluten (we'd already been casein-free, egg-free, and soy-free at that point.)
• Mild rash/dry skin on his torso.
• Tiny ulcers in his mouth.
  
• Grinds teeth at night.

Mom (that's me)

• Fatigue.  Extreme fatigue.
• Mental 'fog.' Haziness. Difficulty concentrating.
• Fatigue + mental fog = irritability
• Headache; sometimes migraines
• Digestive discomforts not unlike what the Os experience. 
• pH imbalances
• Acne flare up.
• Depending on the degree of the infraction a cold sore or mouth ulcers may develop.
• Grind teeth.
• Aches and pains, particularly in joints - though this reaction has thankfully diminished excessively over the past year.  This recent infraction has left me with achy knees, but nothing like the total body ache and discomfort I would have experienced a year ago after an infraction.

I am certain these are not the most severe reactions relative to what I've read some children and families endure.  I am thankful each day that we figured this out while the Os are still so young and perhaps spared them some further complications and/or more severe reactions.  

But can you imagine what Little O's skin would look like if we didn't know gluten, casein, and soy cause him to break out in this red, irritating rash?  If we stopped modifying our diet, I'd bet his skin would become more irritated, drier, and more painful. Doctors would probably recommend various drugs, steroids, and chemical-laden creams to slather all over him. Who knows how many hundred of dollars I would have spent in vain trying to find the most natural creams and oils to soothe his dermatitis? 

No thanks.  We can handle the elimination diet.  The Professor is becoming more supportive and has begun to (I think) better appreciate the ramifications of even a minor infraction for the kids.  My close friends are very considerate and thoughtful - they indulge my frustrations and complaints from time to time when I do get frustrated with our diet and they are always figuring out how to offer the Os foods that fit our modifications.

It is times like this, when I see my children experiencing pain and discomfort that I renew my commitment to the diet, I tell myself not to complain about the difficulties we sometimes face due to the dietary modifications, and I remind myself of just how much better we all can feel when we eat right for us.