O-Boy(s)!: Field Trip

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Field Trip

Last week Jacob came home from school with the best news ever. He had a field trip planned for my birthday! SO EXCITING! His teacher suggested to him that maybe I could come as a parent helper. He was so excited by the idea of being with me all morning on my birthday at his field trip. This felt like celebrating to him. And so that is how I spent most of my day - with Jacob and 46 other kids at This is the Place Heritage Park.

We love this historical pioneer village, and have been there many times. For the field trip, the village had 5 different houses and stores open with docents in costume teaching about pioneer life. At the barber shop, pictured above, we learned that the barber cut hair, shaved faces, pulled teeth and let blood (to clean out the bad blood in illness). Jacob was picked to demonstrate shaving. The barber used shaving cream, a straight razor and aftershave. Jacob loved it!! The barber then warned Jacob that all the girls would fall in love with his sweet smelling face. Of course the little girls did just as he suggested - chasing Jacob all day to smell his face. Jacob LOVED the attention, laughing and running away from them all morning!!

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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