Feed Me!

This week, I met with a nutritionist to discuss a food plan for Cole. We've been having trouble because of his multiple allergies, so I thought a nutritionist might be able to help me come up with a plan to ensure that he receives a balanced diet with everything he needs from a nutritional perspective. The discussion didn't go exactly as I expected. The nutritionist had asked me to send her a summarized medical history and a 3-day food log before our discussion. When I called at the specified time, she could not find the document I sent, which upset me (she's not cheap). She had read the document and was able to find it, but it didn't start things off on the right foot.

I had expected she would simply look at the food log and inform me of what was missing from his diet. Instead, she said that she thought Cole was showing signs of a disorder called eosinopilic esophagitis (EE). EE is an allergic flammatory condition of the esophagus and occurs when white blood cells are present in the esophagus. In children, the most common symptoms are abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, coughing, and failure to thrive. EE is thought to be caused by acid reflux and allergies. For unknown reasons, men are more commonly affected than women, and it is most commonly found in young boys and men. EE is usually diagnosed using endoscopy.

Cole did have an endoscopy back in September, and EE was not mentioned. The nutritionist said that it was probably too early to diagnose. Anyway, the crux of EE is that once a patient starts eating and getting used to a particular food, the body basically starts to develop an allergy to it. To try to trick Cole's body from doing this, she suggested that we start a rotation diet in which we rotate his protein and grain at least every three days. For example, if he eats chicken and wheat on Monday, then he can't have chicken or wheat again for three days. So, on Wednesday, we did chicken and wheat, Thursday was rice and beans, and Friday was pork and oatmeal. Tomorrow will be beef and quinoa.

She made other suggestions, including avoiding vaccines for the next 18 months and creating a homemade rice milk formula to replace Alimentum. I don't necessarily agree with the vaccine suggestion (he only has one set left anyway), and although I wouldn't mind making his formula from scratch, the formula recipe she suggested includes coconut milk, which I'm not supposed to give him because of his peanut allergy (she didn't seem to think it was a big deal - I disagree). Regardless, I think I'll try the rotation diet and skip the other two suggestions (at least for now).

We'll see how this approach works. I took Cole to the doctor this week, and he weighed in at 21 pounds - 37th percentile - not horrible, but not great.