Some of you may remember when Hewitt was hospitalized last year for double pneumonia. Ever since then I’ve had my doubts about whether or not he was going to deal with asthma. But to be honest, I wasn’t quite prepared to deal with it quite yet. I kinda felt like Scarlett O’Hara – “I’ll think about that tomorrow.”
Here he is having a breathing treatment during a recent cold that settled in his lungs.
Well, I finally knew it was time, and so I did the unthinkable. I removed all dairy from Hewitt’s diet. It is NOT an easy thing to do. Especially for a family such as ours where dairy is a main component in our diet.
Poor kid – no milk, cheese, butter.
So far, he’s handling it ok. He’ll cry occasionally because he wants something he can’t have. But I’ve done some special stuff just for him. I got him orange juice – and he’s the only one allowed to drink it. I got some rice milk so he can have the occasional bowl of cereal.
The worst part was that we could not make our normal breakfast birthday cake (b/c it is very heavy on the butter). So we made a blueberry cake instead – it just wasn’t the same. 🙁
Here is a photo of another special thing – I let Hewitt lick the icing bowl. After all, if the kid can’t have dairy, he should get extra sugar, right?! 😉
The good news? It definitely seems to be helping him. A lot of his symptoms are gone. No more perpetual runny nose. No more drooling. No more swollen sinus. No more vomiting because he couldn’t stop coughing.
I still don’t know whether or not Hewitt has asthma, but he definitely seems to be allergic to dairy. So for now, we’ll keep him off the dairy. I really don’t want another hospital stay with him.
PJ,
I happened upon your blog while looking for goats. I live in Southwestern Indiana and have been conversing with Christine @ Sunchance about goats. Anyway, my son had asthma horribly from an infant. I also tried eliminating dairy from his diet. It alleviated his symptoms but it wasn’t the trigger of his asthma. He is going on 6 now and seems to be outgrowing it. The first of this year I came up with a herbal mixture to make a tincture with that was safe for children and would help asthma. Now when my son even coughs, etc…I immediately give him some of the herbal mix and it seems to do the trick. Praise God! When he was younger we were doing breathing treatments every 4 hours and he took 5 medications a day total. So if you ever think about doing something with herbs, let me know. I’d be glad to share what I have found out. 🙂 **BTW, I’m not selling anything. lol. I didn’t want you to think I sell herb stuff. I just know how horrible it is to see a little boy in distress from asthma.
Tracy
http://www.evanspatch.wordpress.com
Hi Tracy!
Christine with Sunchance is wonderful and a great friend of mine! 😀
I’m glad your son is outgrowing the asthma. What was his trigger?
My favorite herb for lung stuff is mullein. We make our own tinctures with it. I’d love to hear what is in your mix.
Thanks for sharing – it’s always nice to not be alone. 😀
PJ
I just discovered your blog. I really have to give you credit for homeschooling 8 kids. I have 2 and I love them to pieces, but I don’t think I could homeschool them.
My older son (6) is anaphalictic (his airways close due to allergies) to all dairy, nuts, and peanuts and also allergic to eggs. It’s hard in the begining, but as your probably realizing, it gets easier. I would love to try your soup, but in addition to not being able to eat dairy, my son can’t touch it either. I would be scared to have it in my house.