Pandemic - more good

 Another good thing that's come of the pandemic is that we could focus on Little L's tummy.

Little L has some pretty major tummy problems. We figured out eventually he is lactose intolerant (he did ok with mom's milk but never could tolerate cow's milk). But there were other problems too. And we just couldn't figure it out. He kept getting lactose on accident and also getting real tummy bugs (tummy bugs are rampant in daycares if you don't already know this) so it was really confusing. 

We finally took him to Children's Hospital in Kansas City and spent about $2K on tests to have them tell us "we don't know what's wrong but it's probably some food intolerances." They suggested going on a FODMAP diet for people with inflammatory bowel syndrome, also called IBS. FODMAP is an acronym for all the foods that can set off IBS. It is all in the chart below.

There were so many things on there that we ate all the time like apples and beans and honey! It was awful but we thought we'd try. It quickly proved impossible with his insane ability to sneak food at parties and all the tummy bugs he kept getting. We got more confused.

Then the pandemic hit, and we were stuck at home. It was a great opportunity to carefully control the food and the tummy bugs our Little L was exposed to.  We did the elimination diet and added things back one at a time. We quickly figured out the hubby has some food intolerances too! He never knew this before. This was SUPER helpful because the hubby can communicate more clearly about what hurts his tummy.

We discovered both our boys react to the galactan group (this includes soy, cashews and chickpeas). They are particularly sensitive to soy - we have been putting this in the same category as milk and really keeping it out of his diet. The others he can take in really low amounts. Some of the others he is generally ok with but can cause problems in higher amounts like watermelon and veggies like Brussels sprouts. Once we got all of this out of the diet it became much easier to spot problems.

But things continued to be confusing. For example one night when Little L had nothing that should have hurt his tummy he was up all night vomiting. We knew there must be something else. We did some more research and eventually discovered GERD. This is for people with acid reflux. 

Aahhhh - now things were starting to make sense. Tomato sauce, peppermint, and chocolate were all ok with IBS but not ok with GERD and had been causing our Little L problems.

So now we are finally seeing some patterns that make sense. Little L has lactose and soy intolerance. He also reacts to too much galactans and fructans. And, we limit the GERD foods and try to give those earlier in the day to prevent acid reflux.

These diets are complicated, especially the IBS diet.  I imagine things will get confusing again once he goes back to school. By then hopefully he can keep track of what he eats a little more, which will help a lot. There are also some enzymes he can try taking and things like TUMS and pepto bismol help too. We will be working on this for a while. But we have come so far and I am very thankful.