When my son was a baby he was sick. The trouble was that no one would listen to us.

We knew that our baby was unwell – he woke up ALL night, he wouldn’t eat well, he vomited constantly and could even make himself throw up, he was grumpy and he cried ALL the time!

I can’t even remember how many times I took him to the doctor or child health nurse and told them there was something wrong, only to be told that there wasn’t.I remember when he was 7 days old and I picked him up from the NICU to take him home. The nurse that handed him over to me said “Good luck with this one!”

Finally one day in pure desperation I went back to the child health nurse and there was a different nurse there that day. She suggested that I have my little boy allergy tested. I had never even considered food allergies and when I thought about it he was such a poor eater that he would never eat nuts or eggs.

I waited months for an appointment at the allergist and on the day I went the allergist listened to my story and said “It’s your fault your son is this fussy, you’ve spoilt him! If you lived in a third world country he would eat anything. Just to prove it to you I’ll do the Skin Prick Test”. We went out of the doctors rooms to the waiting area and his whole arm became covered in red wheals. When we went back in the room the doctor grabbed my sons arm and casually said “Oh, so he does have some allergies. From now on no dairy, eggs, tree nuts, peanuts or soy”.

Now none of that really mattered for him except the dairy. My boy lived on dairy. I asked the allergist what I should feed him instead and he said “I don’t know. Feed him rice milk. I’ll see you in 6 weeks”.

I was pretty upset when I left this appointment, not only with the doctor’s manner but also that my poor son had been suffering for years for no good reason!

This is why I do what I do.

I don’t want other kids to suffer unnecessarily like my son. I don’t want another mum to be brushed aside like I was for years…..

And I don’t want food to be as hard for you as it was for me in the beginning.

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Happy Tummies is here to help you.

You might like to know that my son has recovered fairly well from his food phobia which I honestly never thought would happen. He was more than fussy, he was impossible and it’s been really hard work. Now he is physically well, he is thriving, he is happy.

He is still on quite a restricted diet because apart from food allergies he also has Eosinophilic Oesophagitis (or EoE). EoE is an abnormal collection of eosinophils (a type of white blood cell) in the oesophagus which for my son is caused by certain foods. When first diagnosed Alex did need to go on the Top 8 Elimination Diet and we also had to exclude rye, barley, sesame, rice and beef. We have challenged all of these foods now and it’s an ongoing process for us to try and add new foods to his diet.

To keep well now Alex can’t eat wheat, rice, dairy, soy, fish and shellfish, hazelnuts, Brazil nuts, pine nuts and he is also at risk of anaphylaxis to cashew, pistachio and peanuts. We have managed to successfully add quite a few foods back, with the biggest win being egg!

I'm so glad you found us at Happy Tummies!

Lisa x