((hugs)) I know, it's such a tricky thing isn't it?
The appointment on Friday went well, though if I'm completely honest, I thought it could have gone better. The doctor suspects that Julia has gut dysbiosis - an imbalance of good and bad bacteria in her gut.. He suggested doing the comprehensive digestive stool analysis and a urine microbial metabolites test and to check for zink, copper etc. In the meantime, he wants to start her on some supplements which he will tweak once we get the test results back. This is the positive part.
I agree, this seems like a positive start for sure. He does seem to be putting you on a good track.
I will say this - I started out on this journey just doing a regular ED (so no common allergens) which wasn't successful - then I went to Failsafe (RPAH) and no common allergens. I was litterally down to eating next to nothing and Ds2 was still reacting to things like Quinoa (which is a gluten free, low sal grain) Thats when I found GAPS and it completely made sense. We started a dairy free version of GAPS right away (since I knew for certain dairy was a trigger) and within a few days Ds2 was doing better then he had in months.
With GAPS, you are to exclude as many known allergens/sensitivities at first even if they are on the "allowed" foods list and it's not until the gut heals that you have a chance to slowly start to reintroduce them. So for us, things like dairy and peanuts are out - even though they are GAPS legal I know they bother Ds2, so I don't eat them.
Are you doing intro with her? Intro can take a while to pass through the steps.
For the meats - what type of meat are you consuming? Is it Organic? If it's not organic, it's important to note that any toxins/pesticides/herbicides ect that the animal is exposed to and usually consuming in their feed goes into their tissues and is easily stored in their fat. So meats (and most everything else on this diet) should be consumed organic. Do you know the farmer you are getting your meat from to ask what they feed their animals? Soy and Corn are common in animal feed, so if your DD is particularily sensitive to say soy or corn (even if it is organic feed), if the cow/chicken/pig ect is eating those things, traces can usually still be found in their meat. So if she's showing reactions to some meats, that can possibly account for what she's experiencing. Same goes for eggs. She might not actually have a true egg allergy, but if the chickens are being fed soy/corn ect, that can be present in their eggs, kwim?
Do you do the food sensitivity test as outlined in the book with her in before introducing new foods?
Are you juicing?? We have found juicing to be key. If vegetables are giving her bad gas it very well could be the fibre. If you are juicing for her, she will still get all of the nutrients/enzymes from the fruit/veggies without the fibre. Again, fibre can aggrivate an already inflammed gut.
I don't know if you mentioned, are you still nursing? Of course, it's recommended to nurse as long as possible to allow for optimal healing.
I'm sure there's more I wanted to say but I'm really getting away from the original topic of this thread. Why don't you come and join us on the GAPS support thread I started here? There's other ladies on BW who are also following GAPS (many have also tried Failsafe as well) and hopefully we can all help eachother out.
Also, if you pop over to that thread, can you maybe post the link you used to contact Dr Campbell Mcbride? I know of at least one BW Mama on here who would probably want to email her as well.
About the bio-kult, I've read about it actually. If that's what Dr. Campbell McBride suggests then I would definitely look into it. My only concern with it was that I believe it's an adult probiotic. I know that infants/toddlers can only tolerate certain strains of probiotic cultures until their gut matures. Did you tell her you were treating an 11 month old?
If it helps, our ND who I've only recently been in contact with, suggests we hold off on solids until Ds2 is at least 12 months or older and only exclusively breastfeed to allow for the best chance to heal. I've been in contact with other Mamas on the FB gaps page who also say to EBF for 1yr ++ (one mother suggested no solids until closer to 2!) So if Julia is having so much trouble, perhaps you could take a big step back on the solids. Nursing as much as possible, juicing vegetables and homemade bone broth. All liquids so it would be much gentler on her gut. And then after a few weeks/months try to slowing go into Intro/full gaps.
I know there's many people who follow it dairy/egg free.
Anyways, do join us on the thread here:
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=222014.0 Just so we can keep this thread only for probiotics
Sending you lots of hugs! You're doing amazing!!!
