Homeopathy

Disease is an imbalance in the body.  There are many ways to address imbalances.  You already know my biggest passion is nutrition, but there is biomedical and homeopathy as well as herbs and more.  I first learned of homeopathy when someone handed me a copy of Amy Lansky's Impossible Cure.  I was riveted.  Homeopathy had been alluded to in previous years but no one could explain it to me and I honestly thought it was made up bc I couldn't understand it.  This book explains it in real people language.  Not to mention she CURES her son with it!

Now by the time I read this book, we were done with autism, but we still had/have immune dysfunction and massive allergies.  So I'm always looking to see if there's another thing I can do to help the small peoples (oh golly, if you know me personally, you know my son is now taller than I am.  He's still a small people to me though).  I found my way to a homeopath who taught me so much and gave us much healing.  She is a teacher at heart so she also taught me how to help my family through minor illnesses such as colds and flus.  When her family went through a trauma, she became unavailable so I switched to another homeopath.  She is excellent as well, although less of a teacher, which I miss.  Homeopathy is truly amazing, working with the body to give the body the correct energy signatures so it can heal itself.  COOLEST thing, really.

Recently my son has discovered the world a little bit more.  He joined Theatre class this year and has loved it so much.  But of course, any group of kids involves food.  My fear of social activities always revolves around food bc food has been our nemesis for so long.  I love the people, hate the food.  But my husband reminded me that the kids have got to learn how to live in the real world.  I told him, "Fine, you take him out to the real world.  I'm going to stay here with my girls".  Super mature moment for me.  So he took him to Chick-fil-a.  Or as otherwise known to allergy families, "Are you insane, the place is coated in peanut oil!".  But the day before his cast party, my bestie took him there and just sat with him, chatting and being in the building without stress.  She saved my sanity!  So by the time Tony had his social gathering after their performance, he and I were both prepared.  My husband went with him and sat away from the group of teens so as to avoid being "that parent", but watched him for reactions.  He did not eat the food there bc that would be stupid, but he sat at the table while others around him ate.  Know what happened?

Nothing.

The kid had not one reaction.

Sixteen years of being unable to touch certain surfaces bc of the anaphylaxis that would ensue.  And now he can sit in a stinky restaurant (that I can guarantee you is not mom-standard clean) without reaction.

You guys!!!  If you are an allergy parent, you know the victory there.  If you are friends with an allergy parent, you get it too.  :)   It still makes me a little teary-eyed.  Of course, now the kid thinks he needs to go to every social event around so I am learning a LOT in letting go of control.  Sixteen years of tight control is hard to let go of, but I am working on it.  I expect sometime within the next decade I may have that figured out.  haha

I came across a mom blog the other day and wanted to share it here.  This was so encouraging and I hope it is encouraging to you too!  A child who was allergic to his own tears??  Gosh, I can only imagine the pins and needles you would live on in that situation.  It's so exciting to see another family healing with homeopathy.

If you are dealing with a disorder of any type, I encourage you to continue looking at options and solutions.  Our bodies want to heal.  They can go through much abuse and still be healed.  Seek out a qualified homeopath and get started on your healing journey.  You won't be sorry!  My son is so thankful we continue to look for answers for him.  And his social life is all the gratitude I need.

Ice cream sundae... allergy style

Saturday is coconut ice cream day around our house. Because it has agave nectar (which I don't love), it's a once a week treat.

Today a lady at the chiropractors office told the kids what an ice cream sundae is. They were in awe listening. lol They obviously have never had one but we recently trialed bananas and they were ok with them. Daddy trialed them as well since he had an anapylactic allergy to them and thanks to Bioveda, he is no longer allergic! YAY! So tomorrow we will make our own unique ice cream sundae. The kids are so excited! :)

The ice cream will be coconut ice cream of course... no dairy. I'm going to make some strawberry ice cream just using the vanilla ice cream & blending it up with strawberries. I did something like that one year for Grace's birthday and it was a hit and since we're just looking for pink ice cream, we don't care what flavor it is! lol Daddyman will get some maraschino cherries for himself but we will not have those as they contain high fructose corn syrup... ick! We considered getting real cherries but I'm not willing to travel an hour to Whole Foods just for a couple of cherries. HA! Daddy will also get hot fudge and I think I will try to make some chocolate syrup for the kids... not sure out of what exactly. I have some raw chocolate... maybe some chocolate, xylitol and a little coconut oil? Hmmm that might work although the sweetness quotient of that makes me gag to think of.. No whipped cream of course, although I think Daddy might get some for himself but he didn't mention it so maybe he'll forget it's supposed to be on there. ;) I can't remember if that's all that makes up a sundae but that's all we're doing anyway. I am excited for them to try it! I'll take a picture if I remember b/c it's gonna be awesome!!! :D

Now don't you all feel like ice cream? :D

Thanksgiving fun

So Thanksgiving was bigger this year than usual. I generally don't do that much food wise b/c finding substitutes for the traditional foods makes my head spin but this year I was feeling the groove. My husband has ALWAYS told me to just go easy with holiday foods b/c he doesn't care if it's the usual stuff. They generally have a party in his squadron anyway and he gets pumpkin pie there... and that's what matters. lol

First you should know my parents were here. Aren't they cute??

With my parents being here, we had more allergens to add to our list. BUT, I am very glad to add them to our list to have them here. Having them here makes all things sparkly and totally worth it!! :)


So we started off our morning with Wassail. Yumm yummm! We substituted the usual xylitol for honey and couldn't tell a difference. Let me just tell you, Wassail makes the house smell like holidays. Even if we didn't drink it, I would have it simmering on the stove all day just for the smell. We all sucked it down all day though even though it was hot outside and not really Wassail weather. ;)

I was supposed to give the kids pumpkin smoothies for breakfast but didn't have my brain during breakfast prep and made the usual smoothie. So a few hours later, I made them individual pumpkin smoothies. It's all the ingredients of a pumpkin pie (no eggs and there's coconut milk instead of dairy) complete with spices; so basically it's a drinkable pumpkin pie. :D

Then we decided to paint turkey place mats. But there was a twist, we had to pull names out of a hat (or in our case, out of a paint cup) and make one for whomever you drew. It was tons of fun and everyone got into it!! I was surprised b/c I did not think all the adults would enjoy it but they did.


Then it was playtime with Pawpaw. Kate got a GALLOPING piggy back ride. Then Pawpaw got mobbed by kidlets when he got too close to the floor. That's pretty much what they did for a long time.

Oh and yes, Pawpaw shaved his Sean Connery look off between paint time and play time. :D


I cooked a free-range turkey in the oven. It came out tasty-o! Then there was onion and garlic kale, potatoes (red and sweet) and acorn squash with cinnamon. Waaaay more starchiness than we eat normally but it's a special day so we lived on the edge. ;)

For desert we had what was going to be a raw fruity thing but I ended up cooking it and then topping with coconut ice cream!! That was the FIRST desert I have made for a holiday in at least 6 years. Daddyman couldn't remember me having ever done anything since the kids allergies hit so it might be as much as 11 years. HA! I forgot to take a picture but mushed up fruit isn't pretty anyway. The ice cream was pretty. :)

I think we watched a movie or something after that. I can't remember but I think it was Danny Kaye's "The Court Jester". Tony was laughing so much that it made Daddyman and I LOL. Just love that old movies are still funny. :D

On a side note, Daddyman was working that day (the military doesn't take days off ya know) but he got to come home early so that was very special. We had anticipated seeing him for only an hour or two before bed but he got to spend most of the day with us. Yay!

And that is about it. A normal holiday as far as I can tell!! :D

Successful food challenges so far

I'm writing this here for me to remember but also so others who are interested can see our progress. We have been doing Bioveda treatments for about 6 months now. It has not been the FAST magic bullet I was dreaming of but it is helping. So far, hubby has seen ALL of his allergies disappear. Well, he has to challenge bananas Monday but all the others have gone. He was allergic to tomatoes, grapes, raisins and eggs. With eggs, he still has to limit himself to about 3 a day but otherwise he is good on all these foods. Very impressive I think! For me, I have seen more emotional healing than anything else so far. Although it's a post for another day, I will say when I saw "grief" pop up as my #1 emotion, it really brought me to my knees in admitting that I had shoved that particular emotion aside for years; and once I dealt with it, there was some serious physical and emotional healing for me. Yay me! :D

I can also now eat gluten without needing an immediate and serious nap. I still don't WANT to eat it b/c of the problems it CAN cause, but now I won't have trouble driving if I accidentally get some cross contamination. I feel asleep at the wheel once b/c of gluten. That scared the crappola out of me and I haven't had gluten on purpose since; other than to challenge my body after my gluten trial.

For the kids we have successfully challenged the following foods:
Tony: beans (pinto & black) -- hallelujah for cheap and easy protein!
Grace: potatoes and rice
Kate: coconut (hello coconut ice cream!!), carrots

Shoot, I think there are more. I will come back and note them as I remember. The doc has it all written on his paper but I don't have it written down.

Although this has been a long time and people generally don't take this long, the doc said that my kids are rare in that fact that their bodies (aka: immune system) has tagged multiple foods as death bringers multiple times and it will take multiple treatments on each food to calm the system down enough to assure the body that these foods are ok. Although the kids have been treated for eggs (once), nuts and gluten and I think even dairy, I am not willing to challenge those foods yet. I know at some point I will have too but I am truly terrified of those foods for them so I will have to see all the minor allergens go away before I will trust the biggies are cleared enough to challenge.

The doc said he anticipates treating them for a minimum of a year. I didn't realize treatments could take that long but knowing how damaged and hyper their immune system is, I can understand why.

My mom also stayed with us for about 2 months to get treated as well. She is so allergic to corn that if she SMELLS it, she will have trouble breathing. Target is definitely a store she cannot go in. lol After several treatments, she was able to be in the presence of popcorn without trouble... that may seem small but it's really huge for her! She still cannot eat it but at least it won't kill her to smell it. :) She has to go home but will get treated again next time she comes so we'll see if we can't knock that corn allergy out a little further.

Hmmm so that's it for now. I will update as we lose more food allergies. Pray for us that it happens soon. As Tony gets older and nears puberty, I really worry for him the most. I want him to be able to do guy things and at this point in his health, guy things are out. But God is the mighty healer and I believe He will honor our efforts.

The most commonly asked question

So, people are always curious about how we eat when there are so many food allergies between the three children. First let me say, the big kids allergies are so severe that merely touching dairy residue left on some surface is enough to kill them. Both big kids have had far too many epipen emergencies, although Grace is the top scorer on epipen useage. They have a few other severe allergies and multiple ordinary allergies as well as some intolerances. Between the three kids the allergies are: dairy (all children), eggs (all children), gluten (all children + mom), nuts (all children), beans (one child), coconut (one child), millet, amaranth, buckwheat (one child), soy (one child), zucchini (one child), squash (two children), sugar (all children + mom) and probably others that I'll remember after I hit "publish now". :) So what does a family with such a conglomeration of allergies eat?

Real food.

Isn't that weird???!! Simple though!

Somewhere along the line in the last 60 years, people have gotten away from what grows in the ground to what comes in a package. I know it was a matter of necessity at times but now a whole generation of people have immune systems which are totally ruined because we have forgotten how to nourish our bodies. Every single thing that goes in your mouth affects your body in some way. There are no inert foods, only foods that heal and foods that hurt. We have made the choice to use food to heal. It's not always easy but their allergies have taught us how to do it!

Soooooo... what does real food look like in our house you wonder? A sample menu for summertime is: fruit smoothies with hemp protein & avocadoes for breakfast, some form of meat and veggies for lunch, fruit and protein of some sort for snack and non-glutenous grains and veggies for dinner. All these foods are REAL foods. The veggies are as local as we can get and the meat is grass fed, also local. Now sometimes we do have vegetable chips for a snack when we're out. After all, there is something to be said for having something I can get at the store when we are out longer than expected and I forgot to bring their food; but convenience now takes a back seat to our children's health needs and chips are a rare treat. And my kids LOVE the way they eat. We teach them about the healing properties of the foods on their plate and they have learned, even at the tender age of 4, to enjoy real foods for the sole purpose of nourishing the body. And lest I sound high and mighty, it was not easy and I know it is a daunting task for anyone, especially someone with super picky eaters!!

A long time ago, when my children still had autism, they ate chicken nuggets, oreo uh-ohs and spiderman poptarts every day. Yep, that's what they lived off of. Horrifying isn't it? lol But their food allergies have taught me that we had to look deeper than filling a belly and instead nourish the body. And only real food does that. As we nourished the body, the brain started healing. When they were eating chicken nuggets, oreos and poptarts, they got sicker and sicker; they aquired more and more food allergies (Tony started out with only 2 allergies that have expanded over the years) and were harder and harder to connect with. Keeping a food journal showed me exactly what foods were going in the mouth and exactly what crazy behavior was happening afterwards. THAT was an eye opener! I never imagined food was so powerful. But it is.

And yes, all the food the kids eat is organic. We give weekly to Whole Paycheck... urm, I mean Whole Foods. It's not fun to pay big bucks to feed our family but the payoff is wonderful. My kids are fabulous. Just ask their grandparents. :D