Appointment Report

Well, I took Baby E to the doctor tonight. We had the very last appointment of the day, at 7 p.m. Unlike some other doctors at the end of the day, Dr. B didn't seem prematurely shut down or "done, done, done" with the day. He seemed relaxed and talkative, in no hurry to rush off because we were the last appointment of the day. He remembered the other girls and asked them how they were, too.

Dr. B. verified that Baby E has no ear infection and no concussion. Her lungs and everything else checked out perfectly. He said it's possible she could have a bit of a headache from bumping her head the other day, but that wouldn't be what's causing her odd behavior and extreme pain. She is starting to cut a few molars, but that didn't seem a complete likely cause either.

We agreed that it probably was an allergy issue yet again. She was feeling much better by the time we arrived at the office, and we chuckled a bit about that. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was a pattern to the fluctuation in her mood and fussiness level.

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She definitely had a reaction that started during dinner Sunday night. She was better by breakfast, then fussy off and on during the day. Yesterday afternoon she was fine, then in the evening after dinner she got fussy again, especially after her before-bedtime snack.

She was fine when she woke up this morning. Shortly after breakfast, she got really grumpy and fussy. A few hours later, she was in a great mood. Then we had lunch, and she got whiny again. Just before her nap I fed her a snack, and during the snack she started refusing the food and acting really miserable again. That's when she was so tired and yet the pain was waking her up. It took several hours before she started smiling again after that.

See a pattern, anyone? She got miserable after each meal.

I'm pretty sure Sunday night's dinner was a culprit, but this reaction has lasted too long to be just that. In fact, I'm pretty convinced now that it wasn't a single lingering reaction, but rather a series of reactions. We'll still need to challenge nightshades, because it seems that she's had problems with nightshade-containing meals multiple times.

But it seems there was more going on in this situation. I think some other food caused another reaction after she had mostly recovered from the Sunday night reaction.

There are two suspects. She had one, the other, or both at nearly every meal and snack over the last two days.

One is bread. It's a bread that seemed safe looking at the ingredients, but she's refused to eat in the past. When I called the company, Nature Bake, I quickly got to talk directly to the owner, Mr. Dahl. He's a delightful man who takes great pride in his product, is very knowledgeable, and went out of his way to track down the one fact he didn't know off the top of his head in answer to my questions. He verified that there's no corn or soy in the bread we were buying, and they're very careful about declaring all ingredients on every label.

The only possible problematic ingredient could be the yeast. Mr. Dahl said that they use two kinds of yeast in their bread. One is Fleischmann's (not the quick-rise version, which contains corn, but the reportedly corn-free regular yeast), which seems to be fairly safe (I use it in my own baking), and SAF, which is made by Lesaffre yeast corporation (the maker of Red Star).

Since Red Star grows much if not all of their yeast on corn syrup, I was concerned about a possible reaction. The owner of Nature Bake was kind enough to contact the company about it. They replied by sending him a document certifying that their SAF yeast tested free of corn protein and corn DNA--an answer which seemed a bit too specific and limited to me. Obviously, corn must be used in the production of the yeast if they were testing it for corn protein and DNA content.

So I contacted Red Star myself. They replied with a letter restating the same thing, and adding that their yeast does not contain corn even though it's often grown on corn.

There have been questions as to why “corn” is not included on the label. The reason it is not is that there is no corn in the yeast. Yeast is a living organism that grows by consuming sugar as food. This process is very similar to animal growth. Chickens, cattle, hogs and most other animals are feed corn products, but do not list corn as an ingredient on the meat packages.

Lesaffre Yeast Corporation has had its yeast products tested for corn DNA by an outside laboratory, Gentics ID. There was no corn DNA found in any sample.

The other potential problem food, which Baby E has also eaten at almost every meal today (and the largest amount just before her worst spell this afternoon), was some jarred baby food. We opened it last night and ended up putting most of it in the refrigerator after she ate only a few bites. She didn't have much of an appetite today, so I kept been giving her a little bit off and on, to try to use up the rest of the jar while it was still fresh.

She started refusing to open her mouth and acting really uncomfortable immediately after finishing most of the jar this afternoon--and she hadn't had any of the bread at that time.

It was a sweet potato and chicken dinner by Earth's Best. The ingredients seemed completely safe, but I know that Hain Celestial group (the parent company) uses corn-derived ingredients in most of their products. A past call to Earth's Best verified that the citric acid in the fruit baby food jars is corn-derived, and many of the baby foods they make contain corn. I thought the vegetables with safe ingredients would be okay, and she's seemed to do fine with them in the past.

However, if the food is manufactured on the same equipment as the corn-containing baby food, it could be a russian roulette. Some jars of food might be fine, while others (near the beginning of the run, perhaps, directly after a corn-containing food) might have been cross-contaminated with corn ingredients. I guess we really need to just stick with the Organic Baby brand food with citrus-derived citric acid when we need to use jar food.

It could have been either the bread or the baby food. My guess is that it was both.

I gave her a dinner containing no nightshades, no bread, and no jarred baby food. She was quite cheery and normal all evening, went to sleep easily, and is now sleeping peacefully.

I guess we really need to stop trying to coax Baby E to eat things she doesn't want to eat.