Dietary/Health Update

In my last post, I invited requests for topics to cover as I (hopefully) start blogging regularly again. Liz requested an update on our family's food issues. I'm going to broaden it a bit to make it more of a general health update. :)

Warning: This may be a long, boring post.

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In a nutshell, we're all doing pretty well.

Ebee is doing great, and seems to have completely grown out of all her food intolerance issues. She still isn't having reactions to corn or soy derivatives, and it's so nice not to have to worry about that any more. Her dietary fructose intolerance has also improved. She can even eat moderate amounts of apple and pear now without getting diarrhea and a tummyache.

She's really growing up, and is reading fluently now. I love watching kids get to the stage where they devour pretty much any book they can get their hands on. She's even reading chapter books now, and is very excited about that. She'll be 6 next month--can you believe it?!

M&M just turned 9, and is such an active, happy kid. She and Ebee are both in gymnastics and loving it, but M&M is really gifted at it. They're taking a break at the moment as all three kids are taking swimming lessons this summer instead of their regular activities.

M&M still avoids eating large amounts of milk, but doesn't seem to have much of a problem with lactose intolerance these days.

She does still have days where she hurts all over and is very tired, especially for several days after a greater-than-usual exertion, which concerns me a bit given the family history, but the pediatrician isn't worried about it. She has very flexible joints (can bend her elbows partially backwards and has mad skillz with her finger joints, etc.) and is more prone to sprains and things like that than the other kids, but she hasn't subluxated (popped out of joint) either elbow again recently, after having it happen about 3 times when she was younger. I think the flexibility really helps her in gymnastics. :)

AJ at 10 is still her quirky, unique, wonderful self. She really loves to sing and has been in a children's choir for the past 3 years, and has gotten to sing solos at their recitals. The teacher said that she feels AJ is ready to move on/up to more focused training and has probably outgrown this particular choir, so we're looking into doing either private voice lessons and/or letting her join a drama team or children's theater.

She's doing much better with her anxiety/OCD-type issues, but still struggles with reading social signals and sometimes knowing how to determine appropriate interactions for a given situation or level of relationship.

We're working with her to help her learn things like choosing to put a hot pack on her head for the heat and pressure she craves rather than trying to push her head under a person or dog when she's overwhelmed or overstimulated. She's working on learning how to learn to read facial expressions and body language better, understanding and respecting others' personal space, and that sort of thing. Lots of coaching and practice, mostly.

She is still seeing a therapist occasionally (although much less frequently now) who helps us with ideas for things like that, and helps her brainstorm things to do to calm herself when she's upset and work through issues she's worried about so she isn't as likely to dissolve into full-scale meltdowns or long-term panic. She has really improved dramatically, and is enjoying life a lot these days.

AJ still sleeps poorly, is having recurrent intestinal issues (diarrhea, stomachaches, gagging sensations and occasional vomiting), and has been sleeping sitting up in bed lately due to how much her reflux is bothering her. The pediatrician said she probably has IBS, but since he didn't really do anything to rule out other causes, I'm wondering if we should pursue that further or not. With her, it's really hard to know how much is actually a physical issue and how much might be related to her tendency to overstress and worry about things.

We've tried a few different reflux medications that the pediatrician prescribed, and he's ready to prescribe something different if the current one doesn't help more than the others have. We've tried taking her off gluten for a few weeks to see if that helps, but it hasn't really seemed to make a difference. She is still lactose-intolerant and avoids most dairy products, but will occasionally make exceptions for small amounts of foods she feels are worth the discomfort. :)

At the advice of the research scientist from the study I was in (on the effects of excitotoxins on fibromyalgia and IBS symptoms) and with the approval of the pediatrician, we are trialing all 3 kids on going off excitotoxins for a few weeks, to see if it makes any difference particularly in AJ's IBS symptoms and M&M's aches and pains.

Since there is such a strong history of people in our family having trouble with excitotoxins and getting intestinal and/or fibromyalgia-type symptoms from them, it seemed wise to try to figure out whether the kids are sensitive to them or not. So we're making sure they don't eat any excitotoxins for at least 4 weeks, and then we'll try giving them something with MSG in it (ick!) 3 days in a row while closely monitoring the effects on them. I was able to get copies of the symptom-charting forms that were used in the study to use in evaluating data for the kids. This should give us a pretty good idea whether they have an adequate blood-brain barrier to tolerate normal amounts of excitotoxins, or if they have inherited the family difficulty in processing them.

Other than that, the last few years we've just basically tried to eat a well-rounded, healthy diet at home with as many whole fresh unprocessed foods as possible, avoid excessive amounts of things like lactose for those we know don't digest it well, and not stress out about what the kids eat otherwise. :)

DH eats whatever he wants, but he is trying to work on eating/drinking a bit healthier and getting more exercise.

For myself, I'm still avoiding excitotoxins. It really makes a big difference in my symptoms and functionality, and whenever I've cheated it has made me so sick that I've decided cheating isn't worth it for me.

I recently had a couple of months of feeling a lot worse, and finally figured out that it seemed to be correlated with eating xylitol. I'm feeling much better after having cut that out.

With having our college student helper move out and life getting considerably busier this year, I haven't been able to pace myself as well or rest as much. A somewhat constant level of "overdoing it" built up over the course of the year to the point where I was struggling quite a lot physically again.

Now that the pace has slowed for the summer (and I figured out the xylitol thing), I am starting to feel better. I'm happy about that. :) We're brainstorming ways to help me pace myself better on a continual basis, including maybe hiring more help with household tasks and changing what we're doing for schooling the kids.

We are still trying to get our house decluttered and organized, get non-essentials packed and put into storage, and get some minor repairs and sprucing-up done so that we can hopefully put our house on the market soon. Our hope is to move to a place slightly farther out in the country with some acreage, a barn, and hopefully a second residence or apartment in case a parent or sibling needs a place to live, since our parents are getting older, DH's mom has early stage alzheimer's, and both of my siblings have disabling health issues.

We've also been researching schooling options, and have finally decided what we're going to do about school next year. But this is already long enough, so I'll leave that for another post.