Suspicions

Food allergies were never on our radar before Baby Bee.  Even after she was born I could not even imagine food allergies and I had no idea that our little one had such severe allergies.

Bee seemed so normal at first, but that normalcy did not last long.

Bee had the worst cradle cap.  At a few weeks old her entire head was covered in green, scaly gunk that took over her hair.  Her baby fine hair fell out rapidly as the gooey, gunky cradle cap replaced it.  No matter how I scrubbed, brushed, shampooed, or moisturized, I could not win against that stuff.  It multiplied daily and soon her head was raw and bleeding.  This could not be normal.  Of course, our pediatrician dismissed it as "cradle cap" and didn't seem the least bit concerned.  I however was horrified.  My little one looked like she was wearing a bright green swimming cap on her head.

At that same time was the crying.  Bee was not a happy baby.  She spent much of her time crying and when she was finally quiet, she was still scowling at the rest of the world.  She was miserable and she made all of us equally miserable.

Then Bee developed a red, bumpy rash.  The rash seemed to start on her head and then it moved down her body.  Soon her entire body was covered in angry red bumps.  Eczema, the doctor said, and while I believed him, I did not feel that this was enough of an explanation.  I had never seen anything so severe and I was not content to just lotion her and wait for her to outgrow it.  Some days the rash was slightly better or less inflamed, but it was always present somewhere on her body.  Just as I would get her face looking clear, her legs would become rashy, and once her legs were clear, her arms would be overtaken with a rash.  It was a losing battle for us.

Bee also would not nurse.  She would scream at the top of her lungs when I tried to feed her.  There were many meals that she simply refused to eat.  She cried before, after, and during all the feedings.  I knew that this was not normal and kept trying to change my diet or drink more water or anything that would help.  Nothing seemed to help Bee.

Bee also began losing weight rapidly which would make sense if she was refusing to eat many of her meals.  But I couldn't understand why my once chubby baby was changing so rapidly.  The doctors whispered "failure to thrive" when they thought I couldn't hear them.  But no one ever explained to me why she simply could not keep weight on and why she was doing nothing but lose weight.

Later Bee was diagnosed with skin infections-both fungal and bacterial-in addition to her eczema.  Those were unexplained by the doctors as well.  I was not satisfied with their dismissive responses about her skin problems and I was determined to find the source.


With all those symptoms, many sleepless nights, and Bee's misery spurring me on, I began my own research.  I spent hours on the computer every night reading every website I could find about eczema, skin infections, fussy babies, colic, cradle cap, breastfeeding issues, and failure to thrive.  The one thing that seemed to connect all the symptoms and that was mentioned on multiple sites was food.  So, I switched my research to food allergies.  That's when I felt I had found my answer.