Alisha's Story
Alisha's son John is 3 years old and is anaphylactic to peanuts, treenuts, beef, eggs, lamb, soy, chicken, turkey, garlic and mustard. He is allergic to milk, wheat, corn, barley, rice, oats and many other things. He has oral allergy syndrome to most summer fruits.
John was diagnosed with eosinophilic esophagitis in November 2006 after a year of vomiting almost on a daily basis. Prior to this, doctors kept telling us that John was just building more and more allergies, which he was, but we didn't know why. When John was first diagnosed via endoscopy with multiple biopsy's, he was put on a double dose of prevacid and singulair (asthma control). We thought treatment was working since his vomiting slowed down allot, but at our visit with CHOP (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia) in April, we were told that his 2nd biopsy showed a higher count of eosinophils and inflammation. At this point, John needs to come off all foods that he is eating (which was mostly milk and wheat) and to go on a formula only diet with a few fruits and veggies that he is not allergic to (sugar is allowed). The real task is getting John to drink this formula-we will try everything, but if he doesn't take it, he will need a feeding tube to maintain his health. After 6 or so weeks, we will re-scope John and if his esophagus scopes clean, we can add one food per week, maximum of 5 per month and rescope every 6 weeks. If the scopes are clean, he keeps those foods. If the scopes are not clean, we yank those foods and start all over. We do this process until we have enough food for John to live on and at least one protein that he is not allergic to (currently there are none).
We need to focus on non-food activities and try to get creative with the fruits and veggies that he can have. Click here for more information on EE.
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