Gluten-BE GONE!

When Noah was just barely 2 years old, we woke one morning to hear an off noise coming from his room. Dave and I were both deleriously tired, having just driven into Dallas the night before and hitting our new house around 4:30am. We unloaded beds, got kids into them, and fell asleep instantly. It's hard to shake off that sort of tired, you know? But hearing that noise-man, you're up in a second.

Noah was breathing HARD. His skin was blue-ish. His fingernails looked kinda purple. His chest was retracting up into his ribs. Basically, it was obvious for whatever reason, my baby wasn't breathing. We were in a new city completely oblivious to where the grocery store was nevermind a major hospital. I can't remember how we tracked it down but by the grace of God we found Children's hospital in downtown Dallas and off Dave went with a very sick Noah. I stayed behind with no phone, no Internet, no car. As the hours ticked by I began to imagine the worst. I can't remember specifically how long they were gone but it was something like 6-7 hours. At first I unloaded boxes and unpacked. But as the minutes bled into hours I finally just sat in the front window, desperately wishing them back, scared to death Dave was going to come home alone and tell me that he had died. I blamed myself and all my crunchy ways. I was terrified.

When they got back (alive, obviously) and I was told he had been diagnosed with Reactive Airway Disease, I was incredulous. My baby couldn't have asthma. He'd been born at home. He'd breast fed exclusively for 6 months and didn't wean until 16 months. We started him on avacado first, then bananas, slowly progressing up the food chain. He lived on fruits and veggies. We ate very little processed food. He got fairly regular chiropractic care. He'd never had a vaccination. His little immune system had been supported the very best way I knew how.

I'll admit it, I was reluctant to give him meds then. I saw them as an evil intrusion on his body. We were in the ER a dozen times that year before I finally admitted that he was really, actually afflicted with a chronic illness and that meds WERE going to have to be part of our landscape. I started searching for answers. I vacillated between giving in and doing daily inhaled medications and systemic steriods for bad attacks and searching the Internet for what turned out to be VERY poor amounts of information. What causes airway disorders? No one knows. All of the things listed that were supposed to make them WORSE (like running, jumping, playing in the dust) just didn't fit Noah. He wasn't obviously allergic to anything, his asthma didn't seem to be worse at a particular time of the year. It just seemed like a crap shoot. The ONLY link I could find was that he'd get a clear, slightly runny discharge from his nose just before he'd go off on a bad attack. And ALL of his attacks were bad. At first, even doing back to back treatments at home usually wouldn't do a trick. I started giving him nebulizer treatments at the very hint of wheezing and that helped but ultimately, when he went off, it was a hospital trip for hours and oral/inhaled steroids with bronchiodialaters that did the trick.

And when your child cannot breath, it's scary as hell. Did you know children die of asthma still? I didn't. I thought you got an inhaler and went about your life. Sure, I knew asthmatic kids had to take it easy, sometimes had to stay inside during bad ozone days, you know-it could be a hassle. But I had no idea that sometimes, despite what they do know and can do, sometimes...it's not enough. I didn't know.

In the winter of 2008-2009 we moved back to Kansas from Dallas and Noah's asthma got better. We started to think maybe it was air quality related, seasonal allergy related, hard winter affected. And indeed, once spring began to burst forth, he began to wheeze again. We started a daily Claritin and that helped tremendously. I had thought perhaps he had a genetic predisposition to asthma that was triggered by living in several less than optimal housing situations (one with toxic mold and one with a chemical on the hard wood floors flaking off and being inhaled). But now it seemed it was linked to seasonal allergies. The picture became even more murky.

Last year, he started to see a kinesiologist and things got WAY better. I'd never seen "energy work" before and I thought it looked like a bunch of voodoo, but whatever, it helped. Literally in the middle of an attack I saw him stop wheezing and start to breathe freely. Whatever it was was working. And as Fall faded into winter, we saw less and less attacks. I think perhaps he had two all winter long. But I also started to notice other things. He seemed to be too skinny. Too pale. He had dark circles under his eyes. He was whiny and cranky. He got boughts of bowel distress. Basically, SOMETHING was still off.

Ironically, it wasn't him I took to the new doctor. I took his baby brother in because he was randomly vomiting, eating drywall (otherwise known as pica), and not gaining weight well. He also had chronic ear infections and fluid that wouldn't go away in his middle ears. I went in for the ears.

The kinesiologist did his magic and asked me if Ben had any digestive issues. I related the dirt/drywall/crap eating and random vomiting and the fact that he was asking to nurse All. Day. Long which CAN be normal for an almost-two-year-old but just seemed excessive. He suggested an elimination diet, adjusted him, and said he seemed to have an allergy and a blockage in his small intestine, which he removed (and did he EVER! NEVER EVER seen a diaper blow out like that next one did!)

It was obvious right away that something we removed from their diet increased the health of both Ben and Noah dramatically. We removed gluten, corn, sugar, dairy, eggs, most soy, citrus fruits, and peanuts. What did we eat, you ask? Rice. Beans. Lean meats. Fruits and veggies. It wasn't "hard" it just took a paradigm shift and planning. I totally cleaned out my kitchen and blessed a friend who's struggling with several boxes of groceries. We made our pantry and fridge completely and utterly "safe".

That first 6 days, I lost 6.5 pounds. The second week, I lost another 3. We all slept better. The twins had much improved bowel movements. I was actually able to take them all out without wanting to kill everyone. It seemed like their impulse control increased 100 fold. The whining and fighting decreased. They were RAVENOUSLY hungry. Ben went from tossing most of his dinner on the floor and started eating all his food and begging me for more. And he didn't ask to nurse all flippin day-just at the 'normal' times. They ATE and they ATE and they ATE. Seriously, they broke my budget horribly last month.

But the most dramatic shift was that Noah stopped wheezing. And on the fourth day I took the plunge and took him off his Claritin to find that he didn't need it anymore. I have a cabinet full of Pulmicort and Albuterol and a bottle of Prednesone and we haven't used one drop of it this month.

And then came the test. Originally he asked me to wait 4 weeks but through a combination of curiosity and poor planning, we went out to eat one day. And the very next day, Noah had labored breathing. Not enough to need a treatment but it was quite noticeable. A week later, another "test" and the same result. He recovers in about 2 days but it's OBVIOUS that gluten is the culprit. He can have dairy, eggs, soy, corn, and a little bit of sugar and does not react. But gluten? Even a bit? He's wheezing.

80-90% of your immune system lives in your gut. Celiac's disease is a disease of the gut. It damages the small villi that help you digest your food correctly. It makes sense to me that it can also damage your immune system. Asthma is a chronic failure of the immune system. The dots started to connect for me. We are now, and will forever be, a gluten free house. It doesn't surprise me at all that Ben and Noah are both effected. We call Ben the "Noah clone". They are so very much alike in all ways. And I have zero doubt that if we continued to allow Ben gluten he would develop asthma in the next 6 months. He stole some from the kids at the gym two days in a row and woke in the middle of the night a few days ago with what I thought was croup. He was wheezing. It went away by the following morning.

I don't yet know much about gluten intolerance. I'm just now starting to educate myself on the hows and whys. And I'm learning how to shop, how to bake, how to cook without wheat. It's in EVERYTHING. And eating gluten free can be quite expensive. No more 3 for $1 boxes of mac and cheese on those "lean" weeks. I think about how much we've paid in ER co-pays and for medicines in the past three years and figure it's probably a draw.

So this is our answer, finally. I want to thank Dr. Aric Cox for catching this and helping my sons to get well. Ben is gaining weight again, eating well, resting better, and I haven't seen him put anything inappropriate in his mouth since we took him off gluten. He is less aggressive and has been in a much better mood. Noah is looking healthier and healthier as the weeks pass. No more tests, no more elimination diet. I'm so grateful we finally know how to help our sweet boys.

I am not sure if we will seek out an official medical diagnosis from a mainstream doctor or not. From what I've read we'd have to get them scoped which means putting them under. I don't really know that they benefits of that outweigh the risks. It's enough that eliminating gluten has had such a dramatic effect. I don't need more "proof".

And there you have it, our journey through asthma into health. I pray that this continues to help Noah heal and that Ben can STAY well and not have to go through the trauma of needles and hospital stays that Noah has endured. We're continuing to give them fish oil and probiotics to help their guts heal and in the meantime, Mama is quite enjoying her weight loss side effects. ;)