O-Boy(s)!: Color Fever

Friday, February 5, 2010

Color Fever

Jacob colors and colors and colors. Every day in the afternoons while Scotty is napping this week, Jacob has enjoyed coloring. Just old-fashioned coloring with a big tin of Crayola crayons. Often I help my color-blind son pick out the right color he is searching for. On average he colors for THREE HOURS. Two hours while Scotty sleeps, and then another full hour after we go get Michael from school and all boys enjoy project time - a new habit we have happily slipped into since Christmas vacation. We search Google for 'alien coloring pages' , 'monster coloring pages', 'superhero coloring pages' and 'animal coloring pages' then print them. There is a whole wide world of coloring pages out there...

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What is FPIES?

I have 2 children that are recently healed from FPIES - Food Protein Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome. Scotty is 5 years old - and fought this disorder for about 3.5 hard years. Colin is a 20 month old baby - and had a quick recovery. He is recently cleared of all of his symptoms, calling him FPIES free!

FPIES is a severe delayed food allergy of the gut, it is understood to be a T-cell mediated response in which food is considered a foreign invader and the body “fights” it until it can violently expel it; although the exact mechanisms are still not well understood.

Symptoms include: profound vomiting (often to bile), diarrhea and/or constipation. These can lead to: lethargy, low body temp or fever, hypotension, and in severe cases, sepsis and shock. Reactions to food are often delayed - a couple hours or even days.

Many children also experience a combination of discomforting symptoms while the body "fights" this reaction and these can include: extreme stomach pains, gas, runny stools with or without mucous or blood, persistent hiccups, acid reflux, rashes, sleep disturbance, and agitation. Other atypical symptoms I see in my own children are persistent runny noses and ear infections. Sypmtoms can last a couple hours or even weeks after the initial ingestion of a trigger food.

FPIES is a clinical diagnosis (based on symptoms), there is currently no test for it.

FPIES common trigger foods as listed in the literature include, but are certainly not limited to: Dairy, Soy, Rice, Oats, Barley, Green Beans, Sweet Potatoes, Squash, Chicken, Turkey, Corn, Eggs.

Safe foods for these children to eat are determined by food challenges either at home or the doctor's office, as directed by the child's physician.

Children diagnosed with FPIES are treated in part with a strict elimination diet - keeping all trigger foods 100% out of their bodies. It is hoped that this will give their gut time to "heal".

Read and learn more in Joy's collection of articles:
FPIES File Cabinet

Also see her great collection of articles at The FPIES Foundation:
Medical Resource Articles

Check out this new great website with tons of FPIES info:
International Association for Food Protein Enterocolitis