Her Story

Kara has always had sensitivity issues, since being only weeks old. I remember bringing her into the clinic at about 5 months old when she was broken out in eczema pretty bad. The only thing different we had done was give her a small amount of rice cereal for the first time. We were told to stop and try again in a few weeks so at six months old we attempted the cereal again. She gobbled another small amount down and we were on our way, as we had an event we needed to attend that night. Kara started acting really strange about an hour later, very lethargic and a little fussy. Shortly after that she really started acting funny, like she wasn't quite with us. I remember holding her up saying her name as she vomited a very large amount all over me and seemed to pretty much pass out. I panicked, trying to get her to come out of this and she proceeded to do these vomiting episodes 3 or 4 more times in the next 20 minutes or so. At that point, I grabbed Brian and we were on our way to the ER. They observed her and decided that it was a vesovagal response to the vomiting, educated us on dehydration signs and sent us on our way telling us not to try the rice again for 2 weeks and see what happens.

At Kara's six month check up we brought up the rice incident and were told that rice allergies are almost unheard of and it was probably a fluke thing. Two weeks later we tried it again, Kara took the cereal just fine, loved it in fact. She seemed to be doing OK so we put her to bed for the evening. Shortly after, I heard awful screaming coming from her room. I ran up there to find my poor baby covered in vomit. Head to toe, soaking her hair, her entire crib mattress. I yelled for Brian, we started cleaning her up as she heaved and vomited more than ever thought possible. We didn't rush to the ER this time, as they didn't do much to help us the first time. I held her over a towel as she vomited and tried to make her comfortable, watching her so she didn't completely pass out. Again though, she wasn't quite "with us". I don't know how else to explain it. We had an appointment with her family doctor the next day where it was decided to try oat cereal.

Oat cereal proved to do the same thing to my poor baby. The screaming from her bedroom to find her covered, once again, head to toe. Exact same reaction and back to the doctor.
At this time we switched doctors for Kara to the one that Brian's family doctors with in case we were dealing with some of the same issues they have. He has a strong family history of celiac disease. This threw us for a loop because celiac's CAN have rice so our doctor started doing some research online while we were in with her. She came across something called FPIES - we read the description together and it sounded exactly like what Kara was going through. She decided we needed to be seen by a pediatric gastroenterologist as soon as possible.