New Diet

Taylor has been getting migraines for about the last year and a half and all my guesswork and experimenting as to the cause wasn't getting rid of them, so I took her in to see if maybe it was food related and what foods might be causing her so much pain.  Well, the Dr. had them draw blood and test for Celiac Disease and food allergies.  Good news, she doesn't have Celiac disease.  Bad news, out of the 81 foods tested she reacted to 42 of them.  Included on that list was all the foods that she would have had to avoid if it was Celiac's.  The two worst offender, though, were rice and bananas.  That surprised us. 

So now we get to do an elimination diet and work on healing her gut to see if we can add some foods back in.  This is the tricky part.  What changes do we make for the whole family, and what changes do we make just for Taylor?  We are still figuring that out, but while we are thinking about it, we have to worry about cross contamination and making sure she gets the nutrients that she needs. 

We are treating this as an adventure.  We get to figure out how to cook without any grains, including corn and rice.  We are also avoiding onions, garlic, black pepper, oregano, and lemon.  No tomatoes, spinach, apple, grapes, or pears are allowed either.  Add to that no eggs or soy, beef or pork.  There's a few more things on the list, but these are the biggest ones that are stumping us.  Things that she can have include fish, turkey, chicken, and lamb.  She can have lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, beans, pototes, and cabbage.  Coconut is also okay and so is quinoa.  I am using this as an opportunity to learn about more herbs and spices.

I believe that some of these things will be permanently eliminated from our diet, but I am hopeful that we can add others back.  We have to be strict with Taylor's diet for at least 6 weeks, if not 3 months before trying to add foods back in.  She also has to take a probiotic and another supplement to help heal her gut.  It is good that we are finding out now, though.  Hopefully we can get her well and she won't have problems later in life.  It will also be interesting to see if there are changes in the other members of the family with our change in diet.