What is FPIES, you ask? Well, it's a food allergy. However, it is not your typical food allergy with hives, scratchy throat, facial swelling etc. That would be too easy to have another allergy like that in our family! Nope, FPIES is more of a stomach reaction to an allergen. The triggers that led us to the allergist was rice cereal (you'd never think of an allergy to rice, but yes - we've got it!). Her reaction was severe and very scary. So for now, we are to avoid all grains - wheat, barley, oats, rice, etc. As well, we will avoid the other triggers (major ones being dairy, soy, chicken, turkey, sweet potatoes, green beans, peas...I think that is it, although she could technically have a reaction to any food). The treatment is avoidance. If she has an exposure, it will likely mean a trip to the ER for an IV to prevent dehydration from the severe vomitting and diarrhea. The doctor did some skin prick tests today to grains and as expected they were all negative. He will do patch testing in October - where he will mix the grains with vaseline, put it on her back and leave it on fr 48 hours. It is pretty new type of test, but if positive will definitely give us a place to start. Our allergist told us that this allergy is often outgrown - that is good news. The bad news...lots of baby foods, finger foods and cheerios have grains in them, and with no dairy - that means no cheese, yogurt, etc. I'm finding it somewhat difficult to introduce new foods to this little one, but she doesn't seem to mind. He did say I could try dairy, starting with a lick of yogurt one day, 2 licks the 2nd day etc. Sometimes the reaction is not seen until after a few exposures. This is kind of scary to do, so I will only do it when Ernie is home!
Good thing I like and respect our allergist...we see him almost monthly given that 3 kids see him for pretty serious allergies!!
We'll keep on chugging along!
2 comments:
Oh Kim! I will be praying for you guys. This really really limits little Mattea to eating... what?! I will pray that she does outgrow this. I had never even heard of anything like this before. I'll pray there is no "what's next"!
Ramona
I found you guys through POFAK, and while Mattea is a bit younger than my girl (28 months), it sounds like we have similar things going on. We're sort of stalled out on five safe foods for Hallie (apple, pear, goat milk products, potatoes, and plums/prunes) and might be okay with bananas. Otherwise, she's proven to be allergic (FPIES) to: egg, rice, wheat, buckwheat, barley, soy, cow milk, and probably beef, blueberries and peaches. She also has wicked seasonal allergies. It took us a LONG time to figure out all of this (she was a very small preemie and everything she was doing vomiting-wise was initially deemed reflux). She was about 18 months old when we finally did. Meanwhile, she's developed all sorts of problems with textures, is mostly stuck on stage 2 foods (with the exception of french fries --only a single brand is safe--and potato sticks. We hope she outgrows this, but for now will take comfort in the fact that she is vomiting a whole lot less and is considerably happier and more well-rested.
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