Join Your Greener Future...

Find Your Greener Future on Facebook to get the latest updates!
Home | Contact Me | Manuela's Story | GarbArt Projects and Pictures | __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Monday, April 19, 2010

Food Sensitivities In Toddlers

I want to share our first son's story here.
When Liam was about one, he started to get really stuffed up in his nose and turned into a mouth breather. We saw natural doctors and were advised to cut off dairy and wheat, which at the time sounded like something I was not ever able to do.
So I cut down, but not off completely and matters got worse.
At his second birthday his stuffiness got so bad that I worried about sleep apnea and his general well-being. We saw an ENT specialist as well as an allergist. According to the ENT we should have scheduled surgery right away (she wanted to remove his tonsils and adenoids).
Liam was not suffering from infections of any kind, he just happened to have large glands and obviously something in his environment caused them to fight something that he was exposed to constantly so they never got a chance to shrink in size.
I made another appointment with Dr. Lawrence Palevsky and followed his advice 100%:
  • cut out wheat of any kind completely
  • reduce any bready, doughy stuff (breads, crusts, pretzels, crackers,...)
  • cut out dairy of any kind (milk, yoghurt, cheese)
  • reduce processed soy to a minimum (tofu, soy milk, soy yoghurts and puddings,...)
  • minimize processed foods
  • minimize sugars
Within a week of changing our diet (I put myself on the same diet since I was still breastfeeding), he got 90% better. The open-mouth breathing during the day stopped, the snoring got much, much better and you could just see how much healthier he looked.
Now that he's 4 years old, his tonsils and adenoids are still on the large side and he still sleeps with his mouth open, but his glands are "keepers" and don't need to be removed.

I will post ideas and recipes how to incorporate this kind of diet into a normal family's life on this blog.

1 comment:

  1. What a coincidence, Manuela! I was scanning your blog before leaving it for tomorrow, when I noticed you had an entry about adenoids. Denise (my 6 yr-old) has the same issues (!) and my husband took her to an ENT who told him to use a prescription steroidal nasal spray for 3 weeks, then return for a second visit. If the steroids don't work, then he wants to have them removed. My husband is in full agreement and is not interested in a second opinion, a test for actual apnea (which he suspects), nor trying to cut out dairy. (He thinks that idea is ridiculous.) :(

    Denise does not have trouble breathing during the day, but does sleep with her mouth open from time to time at night (and snores at times). I'm going to insist on getting a second opinion, hoping the second ENT will suggest natural methods (like removing dairy). (I've heard there's a terrific ENT in NYC.) Then I will do my best to convince my husband to try it. I've been very stressed over this. I'm very happy to hear it has worked out fairly well for you!

    ReplyDelete

ShareThis