Soy

On Monday, Emily went to the GI again for a follow-up appointment for her EE. We haven't really seen any improvement over the last two months as she still tells me every day that her tummy hurts. The other day she said to me "Mommy, I went to the hospital because they were supposed to make my tummy feel better, but Mommy, they forgot." It made me feel so sad that she felt like nothing was happening to make her feel better. The doctor said that she wasn't surprised when I told her that she was still complaining of stomachaches because she hasn't gained weight or grown at all since we started seeing her. She said the next step is to take her off of the five main food allergies because they find some people with EE don't test positive for any allergens but still have some foods that bug them and they are usually one of the main food allergens. She said if we could think of anything that might trigger it we could try that first before we went on such a strict diet. I told her that we had Emily allergy tested a year ago because every time she ate certain foods she would get welts wherever it touched on her skin. The only common ingredient in them was soy. When the allergy test came back negative we figured it must just be a skin reaction. Well the GI said that was actually a great place to start because the esophagus has a layer similar to our skin and it could be reacting the same as her skin would. So for the next 3 months we are trying to feed Emily soy free. We are finding that it is difficult, but not impossible. It is mostly just making things from scratch and using Canola oil or Butter in place of Vegetable Oil and Margarine. We haven't found shortening that doesn't have soy yet, but I know it is out there because I have done some research on the Internet. She also can't have most chocolates because they contain soy lecithin. Emily is being a great sport about the whole thing. We explained to her that she can't have soy anymore and all we usually have to tell her when she asks if she can eat something is that it has soy and that is enough for her. After 3 months we should know for sure if this is helping at all and if it is we will have to continue the soy free diet and if not then we will move on to taking out the top 5 allergens.