Emerson's Answers

Emerson has had a really rough time his first six months of life. He has been a very fussy, uncomfortable, sick baby. Finally after two and a half months of being really sick - an ER visit, a 9 day hospital stay, and numerous tests it looks like we finally have some answers! I have said since he was born that I felt like he doesn't do well on my breast milk - if only I would have trusted my intuition sooner. So after leaving Texas Children's Hospital still without any answers, I went to our pediatrician and again voiced my concerns about him perhaps having a food allergy. With his symptoms and our family history, we decided to go ahead and make a diet change. I stopped nursing (without weaning - ouch!), took him off solid foods, and switched him to Nutramigen - a hypoallergenic formula. In the last week, he is wheezing significantly less, he is not making the horrible upper respiratory sound he was making, and he went from waking every 1-3 hours to sleeping 8-10 hours! He is so happy it's like he's a whole new baby!! We took him to the allergist and tested him for 9 of the most common food allergies plus rice. And he tested positive for an allergy to milk, egg, peanut, and rice. Before the testing started he was breathing great, no wheezing and lungs clear. Very soon after the back scratch testing began he started wheezing in his upper airway! The doctor said that something must really be bothering him that he would start wheezing from the back scratch test. He was getting milk and egg through my breast milk, milk through the formula, rice cereal in his night time bottle as well as at almost every meal - the poor guy was getting it everywhere! He will stay on only the Nutramigen formula for the next 6 months. When he is one year old we will go back and retest and do blood work. From there we will talk about how and what foods to reintroduce. Our goal is now that we have recognized the problem and changed his diet, that we will begin to wean him off of all these medications he is taking. We are so grateful for answers and are hoping the next six months are better for him than the first six months!