I hate hives.

Seriously. I hate hives with a passion.

We were having dinner the other night and Bethany was eating a watermelon slice. She had juice all over her face, and then I started noticing it wasn't just juice. I tried to wipe it off and she had little pinpoint hives all over her face. Argh. Who knows what it was...watermelon? Or reacting to the fact that Matt & I were eating mustard even though we were being super-duper careful?

I was convincing myself it was watermelon, since that is a common one. But we gave her some more yesterday and no hives. BUT...I had just given her Benadryl because she got one big hive while playing at a friend's house and then 30mins later had a bunch of little ones all over her face...so who knows if the Benadryl was masking a reaction to the watermelon?

This stuff really makes one mental some days.

So we have another allergist appointment. Not until July because 1) the doctor is booked out far and 2) I promised her no doctor appointments on this month's calendar.

The allergist wanted us back in, anyway, because she has a constant nasal drip. There were no white blood cells in her nasal mucosa (which I believe would indicate an inhalant allergy??) so we tried a steroid nasal spray for two weeks. She still has the sniffles so back we go. Until then I have a food journal to see if we can figure out these mysterious hives.

No Wheat. I think.

Well, we started off with adding wheat to her diet successfully, I thought. Then I had a couple of days where I wasn't 100% positive. Then I had a couple of days where I caught myself thinking, "Maybe she's just tired," or "Maybe her blood sugar is getting a little low." So we decided to go off wheat and see what happens. Lo and behold she was a darling child again. It's bizarre - she really doesn't have horrible behavior per se, it's just when you take her off wheat it is VERY noticeable how different she is!

So no wheat for now. But wait, there's more...we started tree nuts at the same time as wheat so it could be that instead. I have a book that goes in depth into elimination diets, and even breaks it out to single food elimination diets versus multiple food elimination diets versus rotation diets (whatever that is). So I will read up on that and then try wheat and tree nuts separately.

The Mind Games Allergies Can Play on You

So...after the wheat-breaded fishsticks: 24 hours later, HUGE melt-down. But it occurred to me that fish is another major allergen for many people. So no wheat or fishsticks for 3 days, then we tried some bread. 24 hours later, HUGE melt-down. Is it a mere coincidence or does wheat contribute to her behavior issues? (by the way, I still have to make homemade bread...all commercial breads have soy!)

So we tried noodles. She doesn't want them (they're different). She doesn't want anymore of that homemade bread. She doesn't want any different cereals. FINALLY we get her to eat some tortillas. So far, so good. We'll see what 24 hours shows us.

Everything I've tried making her has been rejected. I'm getting frustrated, but continue to hope that her picky eating has been because eating has made her feel bad in the past .

I also started giving her tree nuts again, since the allergist said she had no signs of being allergic to them (we didn't test them, just from anecdotal evidence). So I worry about if adding tree nuts to her diet at the same time as wheat might be an issue - if she starts having behavioral issues again do I blame the nuts or the wheat?

And then I noticed one of the nut containers said they might be roasted in cottonseed oil. That's a seed, but the allergist said oils are ok. But then I read some oils are ok, some aren't - it depends on if the seed was cold or hot pressed when processing the oil. Huh?? Really??

And then she complained a while back of her mouth itching after playing with some balloons. And after she had a bandaid she had a rather mad-looking rashy area underneath. So now do I suspect latex?

Seriously, your mind can start going overboard until steam comes out of your ears when you deal with this stuff! It is like a "what-if?" game that your mind continuously plays with itself. And then every little behavioral hiccup she has sets my brain off again ("Was it the wheat? Is she just tired?")...some days I wish we could just go back to the allergist and have her tested for ALL major allergens. Just poke her with EVERYTHING. And then I ran into a friend that said the skin tests aren't always 100% reliable - people can have false positives. Honestly.