Poisoning Your Kids Is Bad, And Other Things I Didn't Know About Food Allergies

I'm assuming most of you know I have a 5 year old, but most of you haven't met him. That's not an accident. Jack has always been, well, a handful would be putting it nicely. It would probably be more accurate to say that he's whatever the appropriate word is to call a small child an asshole. Well at least, he used to be.

As a baby, he slept in 45 minute shifts until he was more than a year old. He just flat out refused to sleep through the night. The toddler years were especially evil. I had the whole existential crisis, thinking it was something I was doing - and it was, I was poisoning him.

Not intentionally, of course. For non parents, you go through this process with trying new foods with kids. The problem with this system is they can't talk yet, so pretty much anything that doesn't cause a fever is put on the approved list. What this doesn't prepare you for is foods that you're allergic to but that don't present with the obvious set of symptoms.

Most specifically, psych symptoms. Yes, that's a thing. When Jack started Kindergarten this year, I knew it was gonna be interesting. I didn't quite expect my first parent teacher conference to be the second week of school. Of course, they automatically assumed it was a discipline issue. I had already tried it all, of course, from rewards to consequences to ignoring the bad to every choice the internet supplied when you do an exhaustive search trying to fix your kid. I knew if I didn't figure it out, they were gonna label him ADHD or some other assorted behavioral issue, and that would follow him forever. I wasn't okay with that.

I stumbled upon this article, and it was like - wait, that's thoroughly Jack. It came up in my searches almost a dozen times before I decided to take it seriously. Because not that long ago, I thought all these gluten free people were just on some fad diet. I worked in a restaurant and half scoffed when someone requested the allergy menu, thinking they didn't have a real problem. It wasn't until one of my best friends had some health issues and went Paleo and started to explain the difference to me, that I even took it a little seriously. So in lieu of having someone suggest my 5 year old be on pills or whatever, I suggested we allergy test him first.

It was actually so much more than gluten. Egg whites and peanuts now made the list, in addition to the things weeded out as a baby of the fever causing variety. Bye, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Bye, regular pasta. Bye, chips, and pretty much all the rest of his favorite foods. The adjustment wasn't without a learning curve. He'd always been resistant to trying new foods - to an epic, embarrassing, full blown tantrum degree. He was just smarter than us - something is wrong with the food. Fix it. So once that headache was over, and he was pulled off of all the unintentional poisoning, I saw the change in DAYS. Seriously, like 3 days later.

He used to zone out on things so much, if you called his name he wouldn't even hear you. Any little thing would piss him off, and it was almost never for a good reason. Totally obsessive when he liked something, and hyper sensitive and emotional to change. Basically, a hot mess. And now it's a different kid. Even his teacher, who basically gave me the same face I would have given me a few years ago, has completely flipped and said he's going to start suggest parents of kids like Jack start with health issues before they move onto behavioral ones. So there's that.

This thing happened along this ride, I realized all the things listed as symptoms that Jack had, was a lot of what Jack and I had in common. So when he asked me if I would switch foods with him, I was on board. Solidarity and endless curiosity, I was down. I didn't really think I'd wind up convinced I needed to stay off all the same foods. I wanted my dough-licious pizza, and fried fast food, and all the yummy poison I could get my hands on. Somewhere in there, I realized there was no going back. It was confirmed when I unknowingly / accidentally had some misc wheat product, and an hour later I'm like - wait, how'd I get broken again?

Suddenly, I wasn't as tired. My daily mild to moderate nausea was gone. And that's all without even getting into how much less pissed off I was. I never thought I was the sanest person, but it never even occurred to me the stupid obvious truth - what you put in your body affects you. Things I didn't even realize were symptoms looking back are obvious red flags I never saw. Sure, I don't mind that the baby weight that had flat out refused to get off my body is finally starting to drop off, but I was never particularly worried about that.

It took another week or two after I wasn't Flowers In The Attic'ing myself anymore, that the biggest mindfuck happened. Beer. I hadn't even thought about beer. Beer, which I'd trained myself to like, because it was cheaper than liquor and was more socially acceptable considering at the time I was drinking 5 nights a week. What I didn't know, when I opted to make that switch, I was doing myself a much greater injustice. There's this thing that can go with the gluten allergy - brain fog. It's a nice way of saying feeling like you're half in the bag all the time. So take that, and then layer a heavy perpetual coat of made-from-wheat beer on top of it. See where I'm going with this? What I thought was drunk, was probably more like - hey, you can't drink that, you should probably stop.

I'm, by no means, saying that gluten brain fog makes me innocent in all this. Is it a huge ass plot twist I never saw coming? Yup. Do I have any way of knowing what would have been different if it was caught, say, at Jack's age? Or ten years ago? Or five? Nope. Really, there's no way of knowing when it started. Apparently sometimes you can get a really bad stomach flu and wake up with new allergies. Before Jack happened, obviously, with those pesky genetics and all. But whatever. My genes are good for brains, bad for grains.