Several months ago our youngest, Zayden, became quite ill. His "eczema" rash that we'd struggled with pretty much all his life turned to hives, his breathing suffered, he had a couple of "attacks" at home that might have been consistent with asthma like episodes. This became a very dark time for us. At a time when you're trying to enjoy the little sweet baby months we were trying to rise out of an unknown place. I refused to become a victim to circumstance (some days were harder than others) and wanted healing for our baby. I didn't want him to just become an "allergy kid." I wanted him to have health and to thrive. And thus began the hunt... We eliminated a ton of foods that his body didn't seem to be processing, including red meat. This was hard. He ate no nuts, no dairy, no eggs, no red meat, no gluten, no wheat. At his worst Zayden looked like this, for days and weeks at a time. These photos were taken over a course of the month of April.
We evaluated our environment, our lifestyle. I scrutinized every choice we made and every thing we did with a microscope. I was constantly exhausted from trying to stay ahead of this life we had not chosen. We changed laundry detergent, household products, everything. We felt beaten. Home seemed to be a sanctuary of sorts, with his symptoms less here than other places. Everyday I would wake up anxious to see what his skin looked like. Many many tears were shed.
Zayden's healing came through a whole slew of aspects, I think, and a lot of prayer for guidance. We took him to a Gonstead chiropractor regularly and made sure his body stayed in alignment. We also did one visit with 3 treatment sessions to a different chiropractor for a Total Body Modification, which offers alternate testing and relief from specific allergies. This was interesting to us, and seemed like it wouldn't make a difference but we saw immediate improvement from his "trigger foods" and were able to introduce off limit foods slowly back into his diet.
{Seeing healing...5/12/17)
We tried several different supplements looking for the right combo to help Zayden. A friend (co-worker and classmate at college) of Mike's offered love and support to our family by sending home large samples of a couple of supplements that made a lot of difference to Zayden's overall health. We're forever grateful to Liz for her selflessness and her card of encouragement at a sad and desperate time in our lives. She wasn't pushy, she wasn't a salesperson. She just showed love. Love speaks volumes.
Zayden currently takes daily:
- 2 different probiotics
We mix these in a nightly applesauce cocktail and he eats it with no fuss. This will be part of Zayden's indefinite lifestyle. We recently ran out of one of Zayden's probiotics and had a rough patch of skin flare ups on his calves, difficulty pottying, and a yucky nose.
In addition to these supplements, we also support Zayden's system with Young Living essential oils. We use Raven on his chest nightly to support breathing (more often if we notice a flare up), we diffuse RC in the room a couple of times a week, and use lots of Thieves to keep germs at bay. We also use a cream formulated by two local mamas on his skin to continue to promote it's healing and to moisturize. The cream has lime and lemongrass in it and has by far resulted in the best healing of anything we've tried.
Zayden today is functioning very well. We notice occasional skin flare ups when we go other places and I'm very protective of his skin. We still are very very stingy with the amount of wheat/gluten he gets, but that's okay. He drinks almond or Ripple milk, but can enjoy other dairy products. We use SniffleEase to help him when he plays outside, to keep the runny nose and sneezes at bay, but overall we're so pleased with his health and we can enjoy day to day life with little interruption.
As summer gives way to fall days, which will soon become winter, I feel the anxiety come back sometimes. Anxiety about keeping him healthy and helping him thrive. We do turn to our local doctors, and are so grateful for them, but we don't desire for any of our children to have to rely on steroids, antibiotics, allergy meds, etc as a lifestyle - we much prefer to get to the root issue and heal that. I have a theory on why Zayden has had these struggles - naturalists would probably say I'm right on, traditionalists would tell me I'm crazy, but I've heard that before. If you want to know my theory, we can chat. However, whatever the reason, we're grateful for the options we've had to get him to the point we're at and thankful to the people God has put in our path to help us along the way.
Zayden today...
Feeling fine!
People tell me Zayden is the most like Mike's grandpa Dale, who passed when Mike was tiny. Quiet, reserved, but a cut-up when you get to know him. That describes Zayden to a tee!
This before and after could make you weep. Scroll up and look at the before pictures again. Pray we can keep this health all winter long!
Tiny bit of roughness at the bottoms of his calves yet. Other than that just little boy scratches and bruises!
We're a team!
Cheeser!!
So privileged to be his mommy!!
Several times we asked for prayers for this kid and our village responded. We're grateful for your love and kindness as we fought to get him well and keep him that way. Please pray winter heeds no additional issues and he continues as he has been!
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