Okay, I've been meaning to blog about this for a while. And just as a warning, we did not get this "formally" diagnosed by a medical professional. So we could be wrong but I don't think so.
When Cal was a baby, starting at around two months old he got a croupy cough on a semi regular basis. With the night time coughing and asthma sounding breathing. He was my first child to experience this and ofcourse, it was scary. Blessedly, we had just started getting into homeopathy and I had a stash of about 30 remedies. That first time I tried all the things you hear to try, hot shower in the bathroom, outside air, keeping him elevated. No matter what I tried he could not catch his breath even enough to nurse. I was slowly started to freak and after about three hours of being patient and trying everything Robert finally woke up (he's a heavy sleeper) and he started freaking too. Immeadiatly he wanted to go to the ER and I knew very well that that is what a lot of parents do and that most of the time it isn't necessary. But it's soooo hard not to do when you're in the situation! So I said, "Just let me try a couple of homeopathic remedies first!" It was a last shot hale mary type of thing. I didn't expect it to work and didn't even know which to try. So I got out my tiny beginner's pamplet and looked up croup to find a remedy that might work as a last resort. Aconite! Okay, I had that, so I gave him a dose and to Robert and I's utter astonishment the cough and weezing stopped within seconds. Literally, from the moment the remedy touched his tongue to the moment he stopped the asthma sounds, was maybe 30 seconds. He quieted down, nursed himself to sleep and slept just fine for the rest of the night, only coughing occasionally and then a pretty normal sounding cough. The next time it happened it only took me an hour of fighting the croupy cough before I remembered the homeopathic remedy. Since then I have kept Aconite on hand for Cal. Because it happened about 8 or 9 times within his first year and a half. It was always my first warning that an illness was coming. I asked the pediatrician about it and she said he probably had an under developed esophagus and that he would grow out of it. When he seemed to do so around 18 months, I figured she was right! Here's what I see looking back! I nursed him for about a year and a half (when he weaned because of my pregnancy with Jasper) and all the time I didn't restrict my diet. When he weaned he did not like cow's milk, so we didn't really give it to him. He mainly just ate cut up meat or veggies or fruit for a while until he could handle a spoon. At which time he started getting yogurt (which he loved). After that point, he got croup once every few months. Not real often. Rare enough that I just assumed it was illnesses. Until we started potty training and I started paying closer attention to bowels. Three or four a day and still pretty soft, was not what I would call normal. But he never complained of stomach pains so I had my doubts about lactose intolerance. I took him off of dairy for a while, put him back on and realised that it was affecting his bowels. Next I wanted to determine if it was lactose intolerance or allergy. I had read that allergies are an immune system thing where as intolerance is a digestion thing. That raw milk will help intolerance but won't help allergies. So we tried raw milk for a while. First I took him off of dairy for two weeks, then we got raw milk and let him go at it as much as he wanted! It took 5 days for his bowels to screw up and 6 days for his croup cough to settle in! Which amazed me because until then I hadn't made that connection! He actually ended up vomiting for a day on day 7 (but by then I had taken the dairy back away). While it made me feel terribly guilty for putting him through that I felt so proud to have figured it out! We are hoping it is something he will grow out of. He is obviously not extremely allergic. But I am still getting really strict and trying to keep all dairy away from him. (And for those of you that might be worried, we are NOT doing soy as a substitute at all! Rest easy.) I have learned how to make dairy free pancakes, cream of mushroom soup, and cake. Tonight we are doing homemade pizza and since he's not crazy about the rice cheese I bought him, he just won't have cheese on his pizza, which he is fine with! And we are practicing saying, "Cal, that has dairy in it, and you are allergic to dairy. It will make you sick, so you can't have any." Hoping that if we say it enough he will start to understand. He doesn't get too upset anymore. And I buy him some obscenely expensive coconut milk yogurt that he seems very pleased with! ; ) So! That is our story! You may pray for my husband because he is deeply disturbed over this. He keeps asking me what I ate during pregnancy to give him this defect and I think he feels that since Cal doesn't drink a big glass of milk every morning he is less of a "man". I promise it seems like he glares at the rice milk in the fridge! Ha! We laugh about it, but really I think it worries him. He's a silly man. PS- While I'm giving updates on medical stuff: Bryse got a second opinion on her hernia from a local nature path. He said that it's cosmetic and he wouldn't get it removed surgically. BUT he also said that he knows the local pediatric surgeons and they are great men. He encouraged to me to see them for their opinion and that I can likely trust it. : ) I still haven't recieved the referral to see them but will be calling her doc to see what is happening with that.
1 Comment
|
LindseyI'm the mama and wife. Updating you on our life! Archives
January 2022
Categories
All
|