To have had enough of ex-wife's quack b**s***

[stoat]

So partners little boy comes to stay with us every other weekend and it is great. No probs with that. But control freak ex-wife (actually still wife, they are not divorced yet.... long story) is an "allergy therapist" and every time he comes there is some new friggin food he can't have. It changes every few weeks coz she "tests" him by bending his arm. Load of rubbish in my opinion but I tolerate it but now I am sick of it all interfering in our lives. Latest thing tonight is that he can't "run around" tomorrow as he has "had a treatment" that needs to "settle". So no tennis for us as planned.

my mums friend works at a special school and one little girl told her she had a penis allergy ,turns out it was peanuts . the only reason i thought there might be an element of mischief was the whole turkey at christmas/chocolate at easter thing . perhaps if she left your dp ,she is keen to get the divorce sorted too ,but your dp is the one dragging his heels?

I haven't altered dd's diet for long enough yet to see if what the kinesiologist advised has had an effect or not, so I can't give you anecdotal proof from my experience. Although a cream that was suggested to me for dd a while back has been far more effective than the steroid cream that her GP was prescribing, and I was unhappy to use long term.

Why don't you ask her to explain a bit more about it and why she keeps changing what he can and can't eat? Why don't you ask her to show you how muscle testing works?

Has she always been into this type of thing? I just wondered if your dp was happy to go along with it all when he was with her, so it would be a bit off for him to suddenly start protesting about it all now - and you'd be sure to get the blame for that.

Erm... being in the allergy circle I can tell you that there are people who can't have chocolate, I had a time when I became sensitive to it and couldn't have 2 squares of a Yorkie without a migraine following my indulgence. Fortunately, after some months/years of abstainance I can eat it again without a problem.

I also know a child who gets sick on it, no matter how much he enjoyed the sin. And a number of adults for whom chocolate has the same effect of having a few expressos one after another one. But I don't know if these are over sensitivities to chocolate or allergies. DS certainly couldn't have them mostly because of the high risk of transcontamination with nuts during manufacture process (read the allergy label of most chocolates/easter eggs and you will see the "not suitable for nut allergy sufferers" almost 100% of the time.

And another thing about allergies... they change.

Some appear at any time, being young or old. Some people outgrown them, and some see them return after having outgrow them and being fine with such food for a while.

If you have a look at the allergy threads you will see that it is not unusual for the allergy to return after having a negative result. Having said that, these changes take some time, they don't happen from one day to another.

Naive? Because I'm not shouting Social Services?
You have a couple of lines of info on an anonymous messgaeboard and you think you know everything about a situation....and I'm naive?

Apparently there are many conkers around.

I'm with you runny - what exactly would she report to social services? That she's worried about her happy, healthy step-son who has a great time at his dads and a very caring mum who has his best interests at heart. But they need to do an assessment because he has a runny nose and his mum is trying all sorts of things to see if she can help it?

I wouldn't report her to social services, if she has the medical results showing a history of allergies, the ones that may end up with a social service record are the OP and her partner, either for withdrawal of medical treatment, ignoring medical advice or for putting the child in danger in case of severe allergies.

But the OP says the diagnosis is by Kinesiology. You cannot diagnose anything by kinesiology. It is in fact dangerous especially with a child because they usually give a long list of supposed allergies therefore depriving a child of essential nutrients.

Anybody can set themselves up as an Applied Kinesiologist, they do not have to have any qualifications at all. So a parent that is prepared to trust someone like that with their child's health has to be suspect.

YANBU - about the "natural healer" thing. my mom tried to treat my asthma with homöopathy- it dosnt work, an untreated asthma attac lasts 3 days if your teacher at school doesnt have the sense to call an ambulance...
It sadly is true that many "natural healer followers" do not give much to doctors advice. first thing I did when having my own health insurance (different country) was going to the gp and getting asthma spray.

• about the step parent situation: communication communication and communication in all directions, it takes work from all sides, the child should not be suffering from parental disputes.

But those are stoat's words, not the ex's. She might not be saying that she's diagnosing anything, she might not be saying that he's allergic to anything. And we don't know what she is giving her child to eat, he may well be having a really balanced diet.

My own experience was that I was told it would help dd to cut out wheat and sugar because she's sensitive to them - not allergic. And she said for 4 days of the week would make a difference, not to avoid them completely. She then went on to show me all sorts of things that dd could have and what to use as substitutes for the thing she's used to having. There was no long list of things and certainly no diagnosis was made about anything.

Abundantia- all children are sensitive to wheat and sugar according to Kinesiologists!

Of course she has diagnosed your daughter! Telling you she is sensitive is making a diagnosis. These people should be banned.

I have a child with real allergies, because of the multitudes "diagnosed" with intolerances and "sensitivities" to food people are less likely to take true allergies seriously and ignoring life threatening allergies.

Some people do have intolerances though, that doesn't take away from real allergies, and it doesn't mean these intolerances are always silly (though sometimes they are).

My son has many symptoms of coeliac, but has been tested and found not to be. But when he has gluten he has terrible diorrhea and stomach cramps, and literally doesn't grow on a diet including wheat and similar products. Should I keep giving him sandwiches because he hasn't been diagnosed with a life threatening allergy, or is his pain and failure to thrive enough?

runnybottom - the point is if a child has real problems they would not be seeing a kinesiologist, they would be seeing health professionals.

You didn't need someone testing the muscle strengh of your child to tell you that. The only way of diagnosing an intolerance is an elimination diet.

Did you know to diagnose a baby kinesiologist sit the baby on the parents lap and then test the parents muscle strength

I think that sounds like total bumkum too, but that might only be a part of it for all anyone knows.
I can easily imagine, if I wasn't so rabidly anti-woo, that when my sons problems were at there worst and he wasn't getting much help from his paediatrician, that I might have turned to some such nonsense in desperation.

Or maybe she's just a total loon. My point is none of us know.

lol 'bumcum'

You see that's not what I'd call a diagnosis. That to me is "she has a urinary tract infection" or "she has asthma" etc. DD has no diagnosis, just a series of problems and we don't know what's causing them. I'm not going to the kinesiologist instead of the doctor, I'm doing both and the doctor was my first port of call.

Do all kinesiologists say all children are sensitive to wheat and sugar? How can we possibly know!? All I know is that I am prepared to try what she has suggested to see if it makes a difference.

And I agree, just because my child may have intolerances it doesn't mean that I wouldn't take allergies seriously. My dh has one.

But why are you trusting a person with probably no medical qualifications to give you advice about your child's health?

Because the medical profession have been unable to give me any answers, and what she has suggested is worth a try. It may not help, but I have nothing to lose and dd isn't going to come to any harm.

Stoat, you might like to take a look at "Is This Your Child" By Doris Rapp, MD From your description, the mother may be doing elimination diets, food challenges and other methods described in the book.

Chandra, excellent post.
Bruffin and others who think the medical profession has all the answers about allergies -- spend some time on the Allergies Topic.

There are as many opinions about allergies and intolerances, and their diagnosis and treatment, as there are doctors.

" have reported someone for not treating asthma and worms in their child as not meeting medical need is neglect"

To whom?!

Jeez...I am so glad you are not one of my fellow mums in RL..has it ever occured to you to take a step back and wonder what is going on for that mum/family, and offer support rather than heap a whole load more pressure and shite on top of them?

TSC, would you like to report my exILs who think asthma should be treated with a glass of water, because it's a cough? Or report them for feeding my children ice-cream because I was sucking all the fun out of their lives by not giving them any -- and hives, stomach cramps, diarrhoea and wheezing are no big deal? One of these people was a doctor.

I agree the secondcoming, not giving an adequate diet is neglect. It doesn't sound like that's the case here though. Stoat is more irritated by the constantly changing goalposts, which is understandable, she hasn't said, unless I've missed it, that she's worried about his nutritional needs being met.

My son has nut and seed allergies as well as other allergies, as does DH which is why kinesiology angers me so much. I know about allergies thank you!