Diet and Behavior

Post Reply New Topic

Our daughter was recently allergy tested. The results came back that she was allergic to corn, milk, peanuts, and dust mites with milk being the highest. Her doctor said he didn't trust the results and on a hunch wanted us to try eliminating all corn from her diet (not easy, its everywhere).
What we've found is that a large dose of corn or corn-based products will aggravate her asthma and she starts coughing. Even just trace amounts, however, have a negative affect on her behavior. Yesterday all day long she played quietly by herself, was obedient, polite and in general was the sweetest child you could ever want to be around. While we were cooking supper, she got out her crayons and started making "invitations" which she put in envelopes and sealed by licking the envelope (envelope glue is corn derived). By the time supper was over, she was defiant and totally uncooperative. Bath time turned into a big wrestling match, and the threat of a spanking was the only way to get her to put on her pajamas.
This morning, she was back to her pleasant self, going through the house singing "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer".

Did he put a bunch of needles in her back?

We did that after she appeared to have a reaction to peanuts. However, soon after we began to have problems with that doctor and didn't necessarily trust her. (She was my wife and daughter's asthma doc and she cut my wife's medication without telling her in the middle of allergy season. I got a phone call from my 3 yr old that mommy didn't feel well and was laying on the floor).
We changed doctors and this time they drew blood and apparently did some sort of genetic testing which was supposed to be super accurate.

Food allergies can have drastic results on behavior. My son has food allergies(FA). A small amount of his allergen and he is a terror for days sometimes! I hope your allergist is having you avoid peanut also. That is a very serious one. M son can go from no reaction to anaphalaxis and back to no reaction from peanut. We just don't take the chance. Also, from my experience, I would try cutting out everything your child tested allergic to to start with. Then reintroduce one at a time. I know it is difficult but the body needs a break from it all in order to accept the possible false allergens again. My son had up to 20 different allergic foods at one point and it wasn't until we cut them all out and reintroduced (leaving out the major suspects) that we were able to get back the others. We are now down to 3 - milk, soy, and peanut - all of which have negative blood and skin test results. reaction trumps testing!

If you need help with the allergies there is an excellent site called Kids With Food Allergies. A really great source of support and information. I'm sorry I don't have the link on hand but if you do a search it will come right up.

Good luck and feel free to PM if you would like.

Kelly