The mystery illness continues

A month ago, Amalie's pediatric gastroenterologist put both Amalie and me on a dairy-free diet, in the hopes that it would stop baby's bloody poop. At first things seemed to be going better: the blood waned, then stopped for a couple of days. But then we tried starting Amalie on rice cereal, and the blood returned with a vengeance. Twice. And then, after we stopped the cereal, the blood remained.

This made no sense to me, so we visited the specialist again. Duh, it turns out that non-organic rice cereal contains soy. Why the heck do they put soy in rice cereal??!? I thought it just contained rice. It is likely, then, that Amalie is also allergic to soy. The next step in solving the mystery is to eliminate ALL commonly allergenic substances, including soy, and slowly replacing them in my diet to see what evokes an allergic reaction.

We are now dairy, soy, gluten, egg, peanut, tree nut, and shellfish free. Ugh, that doesn't leave much that I can eat--rice, rice, meat, fruits, rice, veggies, and rice. Unfortunately, it appears that soy is a hidden ingredient in many things, and every day I discover one more thing that I'm still consuming that is off limits: toothpaste, my calcium supplement, Pam cooking spray. Sheesh. But I think I have corrected all of my errors now, and I am waiting eagerly to see if Amalie's blood dissipates. So far it hasn't. In addition, Amalie is becoming increasingly fussy when she breastfeeds, as if she is in pain. She's scheduled for an x-ray later this week, and the doctor has finally agreed to give her a colonoscopy if the blood does not clear up from this new diet. I'm getting a little panicked about her discomfort and what could be going on inside of her. If only we could bear this pain for her!