As many know, L suffers every day with eosinophilic esophagitits. She amazes us with her strength. Recently, she started her own YouTube Channel to raise awareness about this disease and to help others suffering with the disease.
This Halloween season, all children deserve to have a safe and happy trick-or-treating experience. Check out L’s video about the Teal Pumpkin Project!
As my readers know, we have been battling a medical journey this year with our L. Currently, my daughter has no safe foods so going into the holiday season, we will need to get creative. We received a sign of hope as we were in Michaels this past weekend. There was a poster about the Teal Pumpkin Project. I immediately had to take a picture and send to my daughter.
Once I arrived at home, I immediately had to google about the project. From the Food Allergy website, the Teal Pumpkin Project was inspired by a local awareness activity run by the Food Allergy Community of East Tennessee (FACET) and launched as a national campaign by FARE in 2014.
L has many regular food allergies, including allergies that will produce an anaphylactic reaction, besides just her eosinophilic esophagitis allergies. Food allergies are a life-altering and potentially life-threatening disease, and a growing public health issue. Did you know, in the U.S., one in 13 children has a food allergy? For these children, even a tiny amount of their allergen has the potential to cause a severe reaction.
These kids already alter their life so much. Let’s all come together this Halloween and let them have an amazing evening with their friends and family. Participating is simple. Pick up some inexpensive toys, and place a teal pumpkin and/or a free printable sign from FARE outside your home to show that you have non-food treats to hand out. Supporting the Teal Pumpkin Project is a simple gesture that can have a big impact.
For more information, please visit the Teal Pumpkin Project website. Will you join in with us to help raise awareness?
I wanted to update on L’s latest journey with living with eosinophilic esophagitis. From the last blog post, you know we were trying foods that eliminated the top 8. Unfortunately, after 48 hours, we ended up in the emergency room. She had a severe reaction. It was at this time, we started questioning if we were under the right care for L. After our research and talking with other families that deal with this disease, we switched to a hospital that is experienced in treating this disease.
This new hospital and team of doctors are amazing. They care about L and stay in contact with us. This is a hard disease to navigate and we need doctors that are going to walk this journey with us. It was decided that L would go on a new steroid and 100% Neocate Splash formula, no other foods or beverages. After 6 weeks, L is doing amazing with no reactions or symptoms. As of last Friday, we have weaned L off her steroids and all other medicines. Isn’t this great news?
Now, we let her body heal for three weeks before her next endoscopy and biopsies on June 30th. If all looks well during the endoscopy and biopsies, L will be able to do her first single food trial. She is hoping for potatoes but we will have to see what the allergist and GI doctor says for her to try. The allergist said they go on experience of what foods are usually not a trigger with other patients. This disease is very unique to each kid, so it is a trial and error method to figure out safe foods. We will try each food for six weeks and then do an endoscopy to see if this will be a safe food for L.
We will continue to keep you all posted in hopes L’s journey will be able to help others. Our family dynamics have changed so much since L cannot have any food. Obviously, her feelings matter to us and we want to be sensitive to doing activities with food. You don’t realize how much life in general revolves around food until your child cannot eat food.
My husband and I both continuously encourage L, praise her, and lift her up on a daily basis. She is a very strong and brave girl. Positive thoughts, lots of prayers and encouragement have gotten her through these last few months. We are in this with her!
Pray with us for good news on June 30th! Thank you!
As you all know, my youngest daughter was recently diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis. We have been hoping her motility would come back in her esophagus. The latter part of last week, we all wanted to jump for joy as she felt the motility was back! We figured out unfortunately, that she cannot have eggs. Her doctor was hoping she could do a top 4 allergy removal (dairy, soy, wheat, and tree nuts) and her known allergens (lemon, corn, and peanuts), but unfortunately she had a reaction to eggs this past weekend. It broke our hearts, so sad. We decided, we definitely needed to stick with the top 8 allergy removal (dairy, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, and soy) along with lemon and corn.
After another trip to Earth Fare, I found a muffin mix by Enjoy Life Foods. As their website says, all Enjoy Life Foods products are free-from the eight most common food allergens in the United States, as declared by the FDA — wheat, dairy, peanuts, tree nuts, egg, soy, fish and shellfish. In addition, their products are made in an allergy-friendly facility, so there’s no chance of contamination. The foods also are free from Canada’s twelve priority food allergens, which include the top eight plus sulfites, crustaceans, sesame and mustard.
L decided she wanted pumpkin muffins. I came up with a recipe tonight and she really loves them. She has had three muffins this evening!
We will continue to do this food trial and see if she has any reactions. With EOE, it is a delayed reaction. Please let these muffins do well with her esophagus!
Ingredients:
1 box of Enjoy Life Foods muffin mix
1 can of pumpkin puree
2 tbsp of ground cinnamon
1 tbsp of vanilla extract
Directions:
Mix all ingredients. Do not over stir. Put paper liners in your muffin pan. Spoon muffin mix into the liners. Fill 3/4 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes. You can refrigerate the muffins up to 5 days.
Is it hard to get your child to eat their veggies? Never fear, we have a possible solution. Give them a cookie that is made with vegetables! We were pretty eager to get these cookies to try them once Hidden Garden Foods reached out to us about reviewing their brand.
Here is a little back story on this brand. The founder, Catherine, was having difficulty getting her two young daughters to eat vegetables. All they wanted was to eat cookies, so naturally, Catherine decided the best plan of action was to combine the two and Hidden Garden Foods was born! That was back in 2012. Now four different flavors of cookies are selling in grocery stores all across North America. The flavors are Chocolate Chip made with Pumpkin, Ginger Snap made with Butternut Squash, Red Velvet made with beets, and Cocoa Cherry made with Spinach. All of the cookies are certified Gluten Free, and made in a completely nut-free, peanut-free facility. The products are also all natural, made with ingredients that most people could find in their local grocery store or pantry at home.
I recruited my three-year old grandson to do a taste test with me. You don’t get a more honest opinion than a three year old. Check out our video to get his reaction. You will be VERY surprised when you see what flavor he picked as his favorite.
