Cheeser Face

This kid....

You tell him to smile... and he does this...

You tell him to cheese... and he does this...

Smile!

Grandma is ALWAYS bugging for a picture of all three kiddos together.... Before church this morning they were all sitting on the couch together nicely, so I got the camera out. So... here ya go Grandma!

Re-Introducing Foods!

Colby had an appointment with the allergist today.

We've heard and read lots of stories about kiddos having a crazy list of food allergies, then being diagnosed with celiac's or gluten issues, and then once the gluten is all out of their system, their food allergies go away. So we asked...

The PA said that we could test again, but she's not sure the test results would be much different. But, after much discussion of Colby and his issues, she did feel comfortable giving us the okay to try to slowly re-introduce things into my diet and see if he reacts. If no reaction through breastmilk, we can try re-introducing the food to him!

So.. the plan... slowly put dairy back into my diet. At first, with it baked and cooked into things...

After that, we'll slowly try cheese and other dairy if he doesn't have a reaction...

Maybe Celiac's Disease?

Colby had is follow up with his GI doctor today.... it was supposed to be two weeks ago, but have to be rescheduled.

We've talked with the nurses twice and apparently info hasn't been relayed correctly. There is much less confusion after actually talking to the doctor day.

So.. here's what we found out...

The first pathology report showed some inflammation and slight damaged in the intestines biopsies, but not enough to confirm celiac's disease. Because of this and the "sort of positive" blood test, the doctor sent the biopsies to U of M for a second opinion. The second opinion confirmed the first.

But this still doesn't provide us with a clear answer.

The doctor explained that because Colby is still breastfed, this could give us a false negative. Breastmilk helps protect and repair damage very well. (Yay! Breastmilk!!)

We also talked about the possibility that not enough gluten actually got to Colby's intestines because when we were trying to fill him full of gluten, he kept throwing it up.

But... we do know that Colby is greatly benefiting from a gluten free diet. He is thriving! He's gaining weight and growing like crazy. He's eating... and eating... and eating! He has gotten his "spunk" back!

The few times we has gotten gluten since we've gone gluten free, he has been miserable. He screams and screams. He curls in a ball and then arches his back. And screams some more.

So, the doctor is debating between a diagnosis of Celiac's Disease and Gluten Sensitivity. His recommendation to keep Colby gluten free and try a gluten challenge at some point down the road.  So the current plan is to stay gluten free until Colby is three years old, and then attempt a gluten challenge. (He said he would trust our judgement as to when we want to do the challenge. If we decide to do it sooner than three, he will support that, or if we want to wait longer, that's fine with him as well!)  When we do the challenge, we will introduce gluten back into Colby's diet with the hopes of him being able to eat it for three weeks or so, and then test him again for Celiac's disease with blood work. Depending on what the blood work shows and how Colby responds to gluten in his diet will determine where we go from there.

He said it's important to get an official diagnosis at some point due to the other health issues that Celiac's can lead too.

For now, we are going to assume that he has Celiac's disease and hope and pray we will find out differently down the road!