Welcome!
I’m Kristi, a once before teacher, and now mom of two amazingly beautiful kids, Brayden and Harper, and wife to Eliot.
Like most families we are super busy and half crazy, but our daily lifestyle is somewhat unique because our oldest son Brayden has a off-the-charts allergy to all components of milk/dairy. Neither side of the family had a history of food allergies so this was all VERY new to us and has been SUCH a learning process along the way. I’ve always said I wish there was a reference, a place where I could have gone to learn and grow as a allergy mom, without trial and error, without the 100’s of phone calls, someplace where I felt understood other than just at the allergist. After saying that many, many times, I started to document and put together this site. It is my hope that this can help guide anyone who is on a similar journey.
Brayden has had tons scary reactions, PICU stays and hundreds of “close calls” but this, this is where our Utterly Allergic journey began-
December 23, 2011 our lives changed forever.. 8lbs of squish, our boy Brayden was absolutely perfect! He’s our first born, and as new parents we had so many questions and were sooo sleep deprived. Almost immediately after he was born we noticed signs of what we were told then was colic. Lots and lots of crying all day, all night long. Colic happens in some babies, he’ll outgrow it soon his pediatrician kept saying. Then there were the diapers, how could something so small poo so much?! And his poor little butt would bleed and bleed no cream, wipes (at one point we were using only water to clean) or anything I would try wasn’t helping. My gut told me something was going on, so I made another appointment with his pediatrician, this time I wasn’t leaving until I felt like he completely understood my concerns. Yes, I was a first time mom, but something felt off. His pediatrician heard my concerns and agreed my experiences seemed a bit odd for that of a typical newborn. “I’d like you to eliminate dairy from your diet.” With that sentence our lives begun to change in a way we would have never ever imagined.
After one short week Brayden was nursing longer, wasn’t spitting up as much (which I didn’t know until after he was spitting up wayyy too much), sleeping in longer periods, and wasn’t screaming all day. By this time he was 4 weeks old. We followed up with the pediatrician reported the news to which he agreed we should continue on our dairy free diet. I felt so proud of myself for following my gut but also full of questions.
Oddly the term “dairy allergy” didn’t even cross my mind at this point. Milk was just thought of it as something that upset his tummy. Time flew by and our squish became wayy more squishier (99 percentile anyone?!) around 9 months we started baby foods.
One night as we were sitting eating dinner a protein shake was spilled and cleaned up using paper towels. A few moments later, we cleaned up Brayden from his dinner and within minutes noticed little red bumps around his eyes, all over his face. What was going on? Within a couple more minutes he began wheezing. (At this point we had no clue he had an allergy, let alone what being contact allergic meant.) A quick call to the pediatrician as we loaded up into the car and his face began to swell more. “Go to the emergency room immediately or call 911”. One of a parent’s’ worst nightmares, right? Benadryl, breathing treatments, and steroids after a night of observation. ER doctors urged to avoid dairy in all ways (consuming and touching) and follow up with our regular pediatrician the next day.
The following day we were prescribed Epi-Pens and referred to our pediatric allergist. That is when we began to really understand our “Utterly Allergic” life.
IGE of 100+ contact allergic sweet baby.
How could this happen? What did I do wrong? I did drink a ton of milk when I was pregnant, did I do this? Thank goodness for our patient and kind nurses and doctor at John’s Hopkins All Children’s in St. Pete. They guided us and loaded us with info. Then I became bit obsessed with reading articles and researching. So much to read, but what really caused this?! That, I still don’t have the answer to, but I’m okay with it.
Some days its harder than others to be “okay” and accepting of our allergy lifestyle, but, I am quickly reminded of how incredibly amazing our life is.
I was chosen to be a mom of two smart, kind, and super witty kids; one just happens to be sassy like her Momma with a style of all her own, and the other, handsome and intelligent like his
DaddyMomma, while also crazy allergic to milk.Such a blessing to be living this crazy beautiful life <3