The Beginning

When my son was two years old, he began having episodes of vomiting and diarrhea. Not daily, not even weekly. Just once or twice a month. This was obviously of concern to me as he did not have a history of this. Even as an infant he rarely spit up. I nursed him exclusively for several months and I can only remember him spitting up a few times. Once of course was on my sister when I was home for a visit. She told me that she was rather grossed out by the though that the little cutie just upchucked her sister's breastmilk all over her shoulder. She said that formula would have been bad enough, but breastmilk was just too much! We just wiped it off and decided it was better than formula though as it would wash out and not stain her shirt like formula would have. Plus it was not so stinky. Anyway, he was not a puker. Then this puking started. We aren't talking throw up once and be done with it, we are talking throw up that was so acidic that it burned your nostrils if you were too close to it. Imagine what my poor little boy's throat felt like. He would vomit several times in a row, stop for a short while only for it to start again. We would do this for several hours. We went through a lot of towels trying to catch it so it would not get all over the mattresses. Finally he would stop throwing up and could fall to sleep for a while. Oh, but we're not done yet! Then began the diarrhea. For most of the rest of the day, acidic smelling diarrhea. Makes me wonder what his poor little bum felt like, if it burned coming out like it smelled like it should. The first couple of times really scared me. Oh, hell, who am I kidding, all the times really scared me. I wanted to know what was wrong with my baby. So, I took him to the doctor. Of course she wanted to know what he had to eat in the past few days. Here is where the interesting part comes in. I did not know. This all started the first time my two year old baby had to go to his dad's house for a week. I did not know anything as my son did not talk except in a few one or two word sentances. Mostly pointed to what he wanted. He was not really very verbal yet. And of course his father did not tell me anything. I did not know what or if he ate, when or how much he slept, if he played, nothing. I could not tell her. So she did a stool sample to make sure it was not a parasite or anything like that. Said to follow the "BRAT" diet. Which we did. And a couple of days later, physically, it was like it never happened. However, my little boy was never the same. He became angry, sullen, got into trouble at the sitter's house, and was irratable at home. Since he was not really verbal enough to talk about it, I went to the doctor again. I tried to explain the huge change in behavior, noted by everyone involved in his day-to-day life, not just me. She said not to worry. Too bad, I am worried, could he be sick and just not able to tell me what is wrong? No, there is nothing wrong, I am just over-reacting. Soon, this is followed by not eating well, and still all the crabby-pants behavior. I do not remember now if he threw up again before he went to his father's for another visit, but I do know that he got sick again when he got back. So, back to the doctor. Could something he ate at his dad's be making him sick, like an allergy or something. This time she did decide to run some tests. She ordered some blood work and stool sample tests. I do not know what they were looking for, just remember the gut wrenching feeling when we had to hold down my baby boy to draw blood. If you have ever had to sit there and hold your child while someone sticks a needle in their arm for drawing blood and listen to your baby cry, you know the feeling I refer to. It is awful. We got the test results back. Nothing. Why then does my little boy keep having these "explosion" episodes? Why is he so irritable? No one had any answers. I finally went to a pediatrician. The previous doctor was a family doctor and perhaps, I felt, not up to date with all things pediatric. This new pediatrician did not for once doubt my story, which was a refreshing change from the previous doctor. He recommended trying several things for these "episodes". First being a food diary to see if we could find the culprit that way. Now why did the first doctor not recommend that? Super idea, so we tried it. And many other things.....And thus began the journey to discovery.......