My son is allergic to so many foods :(

[crayon]

Wow, how refreshing to find a whole forum dedicated to allergies; some days I feel like my son is the only child in the world with food allergies!

He is currently allergic to tomatoes (and other foods in this family - such as peppers), seeds & nuts, fish, eggs, strawberries, citrus fruit and other fruit we are still identifying. It seems to be worse in the summer. His skin reacts by becomming very sore, itchy and weeping (urticaria rather than ezcema as such).

He had skin prick tests but they weren't very successful because he generally takes 24 hours to show a reaction to a food (and the paed wasn't sure what was in his solution when, for example, he showed a reaction to the fruit solution).

By omitting the foods above, we have managed to completely reduce his skin flare ups during the winter months without using steroids, but really struggle with knowing what to feed him. It also means that as a family we live on a far less varied diet than is ideal (I know I could cook two separate meals, but that's not always feasible).

Does anyone else have a child with extensive food allergies/intolerances such as these? I would love to hear any stories of these having cleared up at a later stage because I'm not convinced that these are going to.

Secondly, any cook book or website recommendations would be very much welcomed because I struggle to find more than a handful of recipes that do not contain the food above, and even then they tend to be saturated fat ridden and not the sort of food I want us all to be living on.

Many thanks

Crayon

[crayon]

How frustrating Texasrose. Although they don't have them listed here, I know these mail order people do gluten free sausages and I would be very surprised if they had soya in (I'd call and check). Delivery expensive, but OK if you have room to freeze lots.

www.paulbg.com/BathSausageShop/order.htm

[texasrose]

Hi Crayon,
I know exactly what you mean - our dd (aged 4) has suffered from severe excema all her life and our wonderful GP has recently sent her for allergy tests. On her first lot of RAST tests she came up se allergic to 4 of the 6 foods she was tested against, so she's going back for another set of RAST tests soon. So far we know she's allergic to eggs, wheat, soya and peanuts bit I strongly suspect she's also allergic to other nuts, seeds, strawberries and tomatoes.

It's hard work lloking after kids with lots of allergies, isn't it?

THe thing I'm finding is that the stuff in the supermarket marked "wheat free" all has eggs and soya in, so I can't buy any of it anyway.
My thinking is it's best not to try and replicate things like pasta by buying (expensive ad not v. tasty) wheat free substitutes but focusing on what is fine (in our case, rice and potatoes) and being as creative and tasty as we can with those.
Sorry for the ramble, I'm tired! Long day! Spent ages trying to find gluten-free sausages that don't have soya in...no luck in Sainsbury's...gah!

[livelife]

don't worry about him not having those foods he'll grow up just fine and healthy without them. you sound v sensible and will ensure he gets a balanced diet. chicken, lamb and beef give protein, there are plenty of veggies he can have for vitamins etc his carbs are fine. seeds are a new thing and centuries of people have been fine this far without them. add olive oil for the omega 3 and a vit c tablet and you're away. you're doing fine. be proud.

[crayon]

I've just looked at The Allergy Bible on Amazon and it looks a useful book. A lot of our meals are of the 'meat and two veg' variety, but I'm just worried about the fish, tomatoes, seeds and eggs we should probably be eating more of, and looking for alternatives to give DS2 when we have those things.

Thanks for your reply.

Crayon

[livelife]

sounds similar to oral allergy syndrome. do you have Linda Gamlin's The Allergy Bible? tis a good book. you would probably do best to go back to typical 'olden day' type meals - meat & 2 veg, shepherds pie, sausage n mash etc keep it simple.