Andrew Update

Well, Andrew is completely off of milk now! FULL ON PREGESTIMIL!! We had been commenting that we were noticing a difference - and he had not been completely off the regular formula yet. Then this morning, with his VERY first Pregestimil only bottle - he has been throwing up. His bottom had cleared up, and was only bleeding and looking bad when he had a dirty diaper instead of all of the time, now it is red all of the time again. So, I don't know if I am giving him something that has milk in it, or if it is something else. I will just continue our food diary and see what happens now that he is off the formula.

Unfortunately, the dr and I keep crossing paths with phone calls. I used ALL of my minutes on my cell phone (first time in almost 2 years I have even come close), so I am only giving them my home number - and I have been taking Paul to and from work, kids to and from school, plus doing three weeks worth of errands - so I have not had much time at home this week! The boys are out of school today and Monday, so I am trying to get a message in this morning for them to call me!

I am going to ask them to just go ahead and do full allergy testing on him - including wheat (which I hear is a seperate test from the other allergies). I don't want to just play the guessing game and putting off taking care of whatever the problem might be!

I must say, though, AJ has tried some new foods out of this and he is LOVING many of them. We found this stuff called Cheetas Puffcorn. It is in the shape of popcorn kernals, but it is puffy like cheeto puffs. They are (artificial) butter flavor and both Paul and Bryce say they taste just like popcorn. He is pretty limited to the types of chips he will be able to have (I think it is just some plain potato chip flavor and some bbq flavored) so this was a nice find for him. He doesn't really eat potato chips much yet, but he will be soon I am sure!

I have made an "Andrew safe" shelf in our pantry - the only food allowed on this shelf is food that Andrew can eat. This just makes it easier on Paul and I while we try to learn the different ingredients that he has to avoid. After spending an hour and a half grocery shopping just for Andrew, I don't want to have to dig and read labels everytime I go to fix him something to eat!

So, this is a definent learning experience for all of us. That is what having kids is all about, right? Hopefully, we have found the reason for the problems. I am not putting too much into the reflux this morning or the red bottom just yet. His system had been cleared out until Saturday, so it kind of explains why symptoms are just now getting bad again. Hopefully, now they will completely clear and he will be doing MUCH better.

Let's see what the next week holds for us (hopefully a lot less than the last couple!!!).