It's been months since i last posted on her allergy.. now where do I start ???
The last few months has been very tough BUT we are seeing light at the tunnel now.
Back on December 30th last year, we had her tested and the result were bad. The readings were :
Candida 10
Dust Mite 16
Milk 7
Eggs 4
her allergies came back with a vengeance and one by one came knocking at our doors. It was almost like CDME wishing us Happy New Year and Gong Xi Fa Cai ! I got slapped, hard. From what seemed like a hope of getting her free from allergy, we are now pushed to the deep end, having to start all over again. We ran though the items she had eaten over the past few days and singled out sausage and chicken nuggets as the main culprit. .. and wait.. that's not the end,
and she was also tested to be allergic to food coloring :
E110 4 Sunset Yellow
E102 4 Yellow No5 or tartrazine.
I was shocked with this finding. Most, if not, all orange and mango flavoured food will have coloring added and even a certain brand 'K' cooking oil has coloring.
Dr Wong was very concerned on her coloring allergy as most of our food are very badly labelled. The law doesn't require strict and precise label of coloring and most you can get out is "permitted additives and coloring added"
E110 and E102 is approved in most countries including Malaysia but it is banned in Norway and Austria. Tartrazine appears to create an overactivity in children and other reactions include itching and rhinitis.
My immediate concern was to control her food intake. How could I send the message across to the childminder ? That they are not to use cooking oil of certain brand and isn't a bit too much to ask when I've already given them a list of no-no's to follow ? Chinese New Year was coming close then and how am I to break the news to the inlaws ? Not to use a certain 'K' brand ? I know they keep a good stock of that brand too. What about dining out ? Should I ask first, what brand of cooking oil they carry or should I snoop in the kitchen ?
I've been trained to read labels in supermarket and now I have to zoom in to 2 more items. You'd be surprised that most food contains coloring, including custard powder !
Whenever we had to dine out, I'd ask what cooking oil they use and I'd do it discreetly, I felt I'm being such a fussy pot to scrutinize in detail what she ingest. The last I wanted to hear was to be more 'cincai' and let her outgrow her allergies. If you had a child with itchy eyes and almost want to scratch her eyeballs out and always screaming ITCHEEEE in public, you'd know what I mean and not to mention the cracked and bleeding heels, leaving stains of blood on her socks ! I had to do something for the poor girl.
I couldn't control 100% of her food intake esp on the cooking oil part BUT I did the best I could. I provided the childminder with cooking oil, I'd ask first, what kinda oil the restaurants used whenever we dined out. Some looked at me as if I was from the Health Department doing some kinda checks but most of them were understanding when I explained that my daughter is allergic to certain cooking oil.
I control her sugar intake, no more sorbets and fruit juice unless freshly squeezed. Any snack she took, I'd tell her avoid yellow and orange color. No lemon or orange mentos, just pure mint and better still, no Mentos at all but she's just a kid, I'd allow a Mentos or two as an occasional treat. No more lemon or orange tic-tac. Anything lemon, orange and mango flavour is out.
She's back on a course of probiotics, this time on a different routine. Wake up - take her diluted probiotics, wait for 30 minutes, then milk. It's crucial that we get the probiotics in on an empty stomach for effective absorbency by the guts. Dr Wong explained a weak gut tends to attract more allergies and suggested a longer course of probiotics. Our mistake was to put her off probiotics once she was cleared off candida couple of months ago.
I'm back on a cleaning frenzy, changing her bed linens every week and mopping the bedroom every alternate day. Not a difficult task if you have the right tools. I'm using the Japanese magic mop that absorbs dust, hair and dirt wonderfully. I really should blog about this wonder mop soon. The hubs is given the task to clean the air cond filter every other week.
I admit being slack when her allergy improved last August, the sheets weren't changed as frequent as they should be and the house was always messy. I kicked my butt off the lazy mode and evenings you'll find me as Ms Merry Maid at home, cleaning and dusting
(and sometimes cursing housework too, when I'm not in the mood)
Ok, 2 months went by, and on her second check up on 19 Feb 2011, her results were :
Candida 0
Dust Mite 0
Milk 0
Eggs 2
E110 0
E102 0
what can I say ?? we were over the moon with the result. never mind the slight allergy in eggs , at least it's all downhill and I hope it'll continue to stay there and get buried and over with.
I can't exactly pinpoint out when she had eggs but it could be one of the dinners where the meat was coated with eggs. My in laws loves to dine at Dragon-i and Amber can whack 4 'xiao loong bao' without the skin of course but now, no more 'xiao loong bao' for her and she only has steamed chicken soup and white rice.
Despite her good readings, I showed Dr her cracked and bleeding heels. All these while, I thought it was the food allergy that caused the cracks but we were wrong again. Dr tested her again for rubber (latex) and confirmed she's allergic to rubber with a reading of 14.
We're not too concerned, as long as it's not food allergy. I've put away all her Crocs and rubber sandals. Been shopping for canvas shoes instead.
As long as she's on her way to recovery, I'm at peace.
I stumbled upon this photo in my laptop. These are part of her early sketches. She'll ask for paper and pencils whenever we travel and starts sketching stuff. This is her family, papa, mama and Amber.
