Four-year-old gets anaphylaxis from yoghurt after parents put him on radical "exclusion" diet
"A four-year-old Auckland boy on an "extreme" diet that limited him to meat and vegetables and not much else went into anaphylaxis when he was finally permitted a few spoonfuls of yoghurt.
Researchers said the boy was an example of the dangers of an emerging trend of parents using "exclusion diets" to control suspected allergies in their children. "
"This was despite the fact that earlier skin prick tests had confirmed that a food allergy was not the cause of his eczema. His diet had been curated to exclude dairy, wheat, soy, egg, fish, shellfish, lentils, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, rice, potato, ham, pasta and nuts."
Stupid parents. My son has bad eczema, has done since he was small.
I did try to see if any foods aggravated it, not by eliminating whole categories at once - by keeping a diary, what he ate, what he'd done/touched etc etc.
Food was not a trigger.
vmax2,
Nov 6, 11:33pm
Nothing wrong with exclusion diets if done correctly. I bet that the yoghurt he ate was the horrible stuff from the shops. I bet that the child enjoyed it so much that he ate tons of it.
I wonder what would have happened if it had been done correctly as in - a small amount of the yoghurt placed on the inside of the wrist and then wait to see if any reaction occurs first on the skin. If no reaction then very cautiously allowing a small amount such as 1/2 tsp for a day and then waiting to see what happens.
I wonder what would have happened if the yoghurt was homemade from raw cows milk not the horrible stuff from shops which can often have a list of ingredients as long as your arm and is good for nobody.
buzzy110,
Nov 7, 1:31am
I agree. I thought an exclusion diet undertaken to find the source on any allergen would start off with bone broth for a very brief period of less then a week and then foods reintroduced, one at a time until the offending food/foods were identified.
To keep a child on a diet that excluded: "dairy, wheat, soy, egg, fish, shellfish, lentils, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, rice, potato, ham, pasta and nuts" and consisted of: "papaya, pumpkin, carrots, beef, pork, lamb liver and meat broth as well as some other vegetables and a fish oil supplement" for months does seem somewhat extreme.
Why exclude fish and shellfish (seafood) but include a fish oil supplement?
However, when I was growing up lentils, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, and soy in any form, never passed my lips. I had never heard of yoghurt until I was in my early 20s. That means those items were excluded from my diet for up to 20 years. Did that make my parents irresponsible? Was I at extreme risk of dying from anaphylaxis on first trying those foods. Was I just extremely lucky?
So many unanswered questions. It is a miracle I'm alive to tell the tale.
Also growing up I never had broccoli, eggplant, olives, mushrooms, liquid oil, most tropical fruits, cherries, apricots, Chinese greens, asparagus, anchovies, salmon, duck, avocado and many, many other foods. We only got fish and shellfish during the summer when we had to go and catch or gather it ourselves. We only got rice as pudding and even then only once or twice a year.
According to the article I was on an even more extreme exclusion diet for 20 years or more. And yet, here I am. Alive and kicking.
I suspect the researchers are being economical with the facts.
vmax2,
Nov 7, 1:51am
I suspect that a lot of people are on an exclusion diet. Toast, sandwiches, meat, potatoes, carrots and peas. Maybe a banana or apple thrown in every now and then.
awoftam,
Nov 7, 2:11am
Quite easy to find out if you are allergic to something. Get tested by a medical professional.
I feel sorry for the child. I can imagine what other bollocks his parents are putting him through. Probably isn't vaccinated either.
vmax2,
Nov 7, 2:24am
Tests from a doctor are not a definite. My daughter was tested anaphylactic for peanuts. She wasn't.
davidt4,
Nov 7, 4:53am
"His diet had been curated ". For Heaven's sake. Curated is a perfectly useful word that is being distorted lately, first by pretentious restaurants and now by a journalist who should know better.
awoftam,
Nov 7, 6:01am
Nothing beats a good story tho. Unfortunately.
awoftam,
Nov 7, 6:01am
What is definite? Its a good start though, I would think.
uli,
Nov 7, 6:08am
it is a good start - however my GP has said to me this year: all tests are ok, however we can always have a wrong negative in there, so will have to test again "later" .
wasala,
Nov 7, 7:58am
I can remember a well-known couple who brought their small children up on a very restrictive, low-protein, vegetarian diet and it ended in disaster when the kids were clinically diagnosed as being malnourished.
uli,
Nov 7, 8:03am
And I can well remember a kid dying here in Northland being "NOT brought up" (as it died a toddler) as a vegan and not having enough nutrients to survive. Mum went to jail if I remember correctly.
wasala,
Nov 7, 8:05am
You need to give up that GP and go for an integrative practitioner. If you pay the latter enough they'll diagnose whatever you want them to - and merrily tell you just how defective you are. At $1200, oddly, there are no 'wrong negatives'.
wasala,
Nov 7, 8:08am
Oh, and then of course they grab more money. There are further quack tests, potentially dangerous over-priced over-supplementation with maybe an enema or two, but hell, the patient is always right!
uli,
Nov 7, 8:20am
Sorry to say - I will stay with my GP including "wrong negatives". You can go for the $1200 guy and tell us all about it later on here. Good luck!
wasala,
Nov 7, 8:38am
Very, very funny Uli. As you know full-well, hell will freeze over before I cross the palm of such a greedy charlatan with my hard-earned cash!
wasala,
Nov 7, 9:17am
Oh goodness, you really must be a genuine, living, breathing miracle. A possibly well-meaning but seriously misguided and often unwittingly hilarious message board treasure. Go our Buzzy!
BTW, I too grew up on a diet wherein we didn't have access to most of the exotic foods you listed and I too am as hearty as an ox in my middle age so you're not alone there or exclusive.
Tsk, tsk to those crazy young people of today!
uli,
Nov 8, 12:39am
Finally I can picture you wasala when I read your posts - well done!
wasala,
Nov 8, 1:01am
And might I add that I'm a good-looking ox!
uli,
Nov 8, 2:57am
Although apparently "a hearty as ox in my middle age".
wasala,
Nov 8, 4:27am
No, 'as hearty as AN ox.' Haven't you heard that term before? I'm as fit as a trout too!
uli,
Nov 8, 8:09pm
What else? The mind boggles :)
buzzy110,
Nov 8, 9:58pm
You prove my point exactly. Most of the "not-so-young" generation lived well on a diet that didn't include a lot of the items that had been excluded from that child's diet and came to no noticeable harm, you included.
For researchers to say that these things missing from the child's diet was a bad thing is inaccurate because tens of thousands of those of us living today had 'exclusion diets' with no ill effects. Take soy. It played no role for the last two thousand years in the Western diet.
The researchers need to be less economical with the facts. There must be causes for the child's eczema. Why jeer at me? Instead take a step back and actually analyse what was excluded.
English people survived without pasta, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, soy, lentils and rice right up till the present times. Poor peoples' intake of fish, shellfish and ham would have been limited depending on where they lived. Potatoes only became a staple in the 1800s. Yet Westerners were not dying in droves from anaphylaxis.
Maybe the parents of the child were not being adequately helped by conventional medicine and so went 'interactive', as you call it. I am in absolutely no doubt at all that if conventional medicine had provided an effective cure the parents would not have sought answers elsewhere.
I will not deny that the child got anaphylaxis. Why would I? But your jeering at me, (and another poster in another thread who is desperately seeking an answer that is not being provided by conventional medicine), for looking at what was excluded and researchers blaming the lack of soy in its diet is just pathetic.
Perhaps modern medicine could put more effort into finding causes and cures for the less "pharmaceutically profitable" conditions instead of the fantastic cash cows that most research money goes into these days.
wasala,
Nov 9, 6:34am
I'm not jeering at you Buzzy. How could you possibly think that? I'm your biggest fan!
Since the public registrations are closed, you must have an invite from a current member to be able to register and post in this thread.
Have an account? Login here.