30/01/2020
Testimony: A child with eczema and soy allergy
The testimony below is shortened, for the full testimony click here.
Parker has always battled skin issues. Even as a baby he had lots of eczema flares and random skin irritations. A skin prick test for IGE came back negative. So we went about life trying to manage it best as possible with creams and anything else that I thought would help. After he turned 4 though, his skin flared to a point that I was not able to manage it. Parker's IGG test came back with gluten, wheat, dairy and a few other foods. We immediately removed gluten and dairy, along with the other foods listed. For about a year it seemed as though we had found a new norm. It was around his 5th birthday which is during the summer. His skin took a turn for the worse and would not clear for long periods of time. I was so desperate to help him. So after many months of research and a whole lot of prayer, I landed on doing the GAPS Protocol. And I'm so glad I did, not only because we healed Parker, but also I have my greatest testimony because of it.
We officially started the GAPS protocol January 2017. It was amazing to see the kids taste buds adapt. They learned not only to try new vegetables and dishes, but really actually enjoyed eating them. One of the hardest challenges was getting them to consume stock. But with a lot of non-food rewards and just flat out "you have to do this to make progress conversations", it became pretty second nature to all of us, especially Parker. Another incredibly hard challenge was limiting fruit. Although truly, there is nothing cruel about feeding our kids quality pastured meats, organic vegetables and fruits, nuts and honey. But in our modern world where fast food restaurants and overly processed meals are the norm, it could seem as if I was "hurting" Parker's childhood to not let him indulge in those types of delicacy. I told myself day in and day out, this is short term, it's not forever. We have to do this to give him the quality of life to be free.
About 6 months in to the protocol, my GAPS practitioner advised us to take on the Intro phase of the diet. The Intro phase was an even more restricted version of the protocol and was supposed to be the most healing phase. We proceeded forward and successfully completed our first round of Intro in August 2017. I was amazed as I watched Parker change. I could truly see a difference in his body, he radiated with a glow I had never seen before. Everything continued to go well as we adjusted back the regular GAPS protocol. But then once again, just like a light switch, everything fell apart. All of the sudden, after months of having clear skin, Parker's face started to break out. Every time he ate he was broken out all over his face. So, as we consulted our practitioner, she was convinced that Parker was now revealing a new layer of inflammation. She said we healed like an onion. Once our body was strong enough to move forward it would reveal another layer of issues. She advised us to start taking out certain foods again that were deemed more inflammatory, almost like going back to the Intro diet to see if we could figure out what it could be causing the break out. We took out nuts, cacao powder, nightshades (tomatoes, peppers, etc.), coconut and then after a dead end, we took out eggs.
We started our second round of Intro in February 2018. It was just a little over a year being on GAPS. We had stopped eating eggs for about 2 months. I decided to allow eggs back in for Bailey and I, but I was going to keep them out for Parker. I had cracked a few eggs to feed Bailey and I in our soup. (Yes, part of our protocol was eating the raw yolk gently cooked inside our bowl of soup). They looked strange and even seemed to cause a small reaction in Bailey. Her face got flush right after eating them. This is common on Intro, that's how it is so easily detected if you have reactions that you could not detect otherwise. Because everything is so stripped down that your body is able to quickly alert, almost as if showing an immediate immune response. So, I started doing some digging. I can so clearly remember looking online at the co-op website where it still advertised that the eggs were soy-free. I decided to call the farm directly. The owner of the farm picked up my call. We started talking about the eggs and then he revealed that the hens had been consuming a lot of supplement feed that was predominantly made up of soy. It was that moment of complete revelation, that it wasn't the eggs, it never was! It was the soy! It really is a hard concept to understand, but when a person is so sensitive to soy, even eating eggs or meats from animals that ate soy can set off reactions. This is especially true in eggs because the egg absorbs the most nutrients from the Mother. So, in other words, it's going to absorb all the soy that the chicken was eating. And we were eating so many eggs on GAPS that it was definitely causing inflammation in Parker's body. So much so that every time he ate those eggs from soy-fed chickens his face immediately broke out. It is truly remarkable how our bodies work. It took so many months to figure out this huge mystery. And the most unbelievable part of it all is that none of Parker's allergy test ever came back positive for soy. Neither two IGE test or the IGG test. Soybean oil is the #1 most popular oil used in restaurants. Even a lot of restaurants will say olive oil, but when asked it is rare that it's 100%. It is usually a blend of olive oil and soy. Soy lecithin is a common additive in chocolate, among other packaged foods. Learning about the soy was what I could never figure out before we started GAPS. Learning how soy affected Parker's body was the single most defining discovery that changed the trajectory of his quality of life. THIS is why we had to go through Intro again, this is why we had to go through it all again!
I started buying soy-free eggs. We finished up our second round of Intro with Parker eating eggs again. Slowly but surely, we phased back to regular GAPS in the spring of 2018. And we stayed on GAPS a few more months to make sure everything was really healed. In September 2018 we got the green light to come off GAPS. We took baby steps to start to incorporate non-GAPS foods and eventually phased off the protocol completely. I believe whole heartedly that God led us to do the GAPS protocol to use it as a tool to help us figure out what was hurting Parker's body. It was a tool that helped us understand not only Parker's body, but how inflammation affects us all. And how we each differently express flares of inflammation. Doing the GAPs protocol with two young kids was monumentally difficult - it's hard to express the level of difficultly unless you have experienced it yourself. But, it's truly nothing short of miraculous.
