O-Boy(s)!: Happy Valentine's Day!!

Monday, February 14, 2011

Happy Valentine's Day!!

We sure do love a holiday in this house! The morning started with Valentine - heart shaped french toast and strawberries for breakfast. I packed lunches for the boys with a homemade Valentine note, sandwiches cut in heart shapes and carmel chocolate hearts. Peter picked up heart cookies from Granite Bakery for each of the boy's classrooms early this morning.

Another Valentine tradition is that I always give books to the boys as gifts on V-day. We opened them before dinner tonight. Some on the list this year: Where the Red Fern Grows, Walter the Farting Dog, Jack Plank Tells Tales, The Alligator Boy, The Legend of the Golden Snail, One Fine Day, Daddy Kisses, The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash, and Tomie de Paola's Book of Bible Stories. I love choosing each book for each boy - and then seeing how excited they are with the selection. We read some of the books at dinner and bed.

For dinner we made heart shaped pizzas with heart shaped pepperoni. Jacob helped cut the pepperoni. It was a fun family cooking project. We finished dinner with vanilla pudding and strawberries. The day was so busy with spontaneous crafts, cooking, & reading that we never even got to the cookie decorating. Maybe tomorrow! Jacob won't let me forget.

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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