Over the years I’ve had my share of battling eczema in babies and toddlers. Each time, I used my top 4 things to get us through it:
- Detox Baths,
- Creams,
- Elimination Diets &
- Probiotics
.
Of course, I have more in my arsenal including ScratchMeNots and healing foods, yet these are my food sensitivity cornerstones.
For my youngest daughter, she had some extra stubborn, calloused skin on her joints that those top four definitely helped out, but then there were the terrible adult poops & belly aches (TMI…sorry, not sorry)
Her stomach hurt almost every day.
At first it was easy, give her probiotics and it would sort itself out. Her skin would clear up, her stomach would hurt less. Then we’d run out or forget over a few days and all the symptoms would get worse. Especially her belly aches. After seeing this pattern over months, I made a hard decision. Pull the probiotics all together. I needed to figure out what was going on.
We already eliminated our usual family no-no’s: nuts, dairy, certain citrus & seeds. But there was one I was hesitant to remove.
Gluten.
We’re talking tortillas, muffins, toast, cereal, cookies, cakes, pies, TORTILLAS and the list goes on and on. I know there are gluten free options, but have you taste them? From my vague memory of gluten free of years ago, the thoughts of rubbery sawdust bread, lots of salads and kids throwing food across the room quickly flooded my brain.
But her stomach hurt almost every day and when I see my little one in pain, I have to suck it up and figure it out. And that’s exactly what we did. As a family, we made a concerted effort to go gluten-free and grow closer to grain free.
To my surprise, in less than a couple of weeks, she had very little to no stomach pain and her poops were closer to toddler level. Whenever she’d eat a little gluten, I could immediately see her body react. Trial and error is the name of the game.
Due to all of our dietary restrictions, I felt like we were eating the same 4 meals every week. I came across Real Plans, which is a meal plan designed to cater to Keto, Paleo, Gluten-Free, GAPS and other diets.
It’s fully customizable so I removed other foods we couldn’t eat and the app populates the grocery list after I selected the meals.
Once we had her diet under control, I was able to add probiotics back. We use Klaire’s probiotics
This reminded me to keep an open mind and not be afraid to listen to my instincts and take a leap. This is still fairly new. We’re still figuring it out.
From what I learned during the Allergies, Sensitivities & Testing chat , we’re not done with our journey just yet. Elimination is only one piece of the puzzle.