Moving Forward

Here's a brief update on what we've been up to.  We treated for artificial and natural flavoring last week, and within 10 hours my son had a fever of 102 and a terrible headache.  At first I thought the illness was related to his treatment since we've seen that in the past, however the fever lingered for a few days and then turned into a cold so he obviously had a virus.  The nasal congestion moved into his chest which always spells trouble for him, but not this time!!! He actually got a normal cough like non-asthmatics get.  There was no tightness or wheezing or breathing treatment.  This is the FIRST TIME EVER a cough didn't require any special care.  What a relief, as anyone who's ever dealt with asthma knows how scary it can be.

In other news, we've had success with the little guy taking krill oil which is a form of shellfish.  No reaction at all.  And we were able to trial his zinc supplement that has a "natural tangerine flavor" which every time he took it he'd break out into hives above his eye, but he did fine with it.  We also treated for soy lecithin, and today was a corn oil treatment.  Actually, I spent $20 on a slew of oils to take in and test against.  Of the 10 oils, he held strong to all of them but corn oil and palm oil.  We'll treat for palm oil next week, and then I'm hoping to move into oats and other grains unless something else creeps into the picture.  We've been at this for about 13 months now--I just counted 56 treatments!--but to see the change in him has been incredible.  The itch is controlled, lately he's been telling me it's gone but I think it's still going to be a while before this beast is conquered.  He's not covered in hives and his eyes aren't swollen.  This past December was the first time we didn't need to have his Christmas pictures touched up to remove the eczema (we always take our family portraits that time of year.)  The next couple of months will be very interesting as we move onto wheat and dairy . . .stay tuned!