Due to her birth history and TBI, Jazz has struggled with both high tone (very tight) and low tone (very weak and floppy) muscles through out her body. Her intestinal track has always been low tone and so she has always had feeding and eating delays and many complications with digestion. Recently she has had severe stomach aches that have lead us to numerous doctors even emergency visits. During one of these visits the question of food allergies has come up...
Jazz has always been a picky eater and goes through phases with her food, but dairy products have always been her preferred foods. And so it was determined that she may be allergic to everything in dairy including the proteins, not just the lactose. Now this child lives for ice cream. In fact she will do anything for ice cream including: lie, cheat, and steal, all of which we have caught her doing in attempts to satisfy this unending need. We knew her stomach aches were bad when she told us she would even give up ice cream to feel better.
Sure enough less than a week into a dairy free diet (which may just may kill our mother as she seeks replacement foods for a child who barely eats anything), her watermelon belly disappeared. It turns out that what we were seeing was a combination of swelling, and a recently diagnosed unique form of constipation. We felt sssooo bad for her because until recently, we had no idea she was in this much pain and that her body was having this severe of a reaction.
During all of this Jazz has been a pretty good sport and has worked hard at being brave for blood tests and seeing new doctors. After her first trip to a gastroenterologist, she told me he was the weirdest and most boring doctor she has ever seen because all he wanted to do was talk about poop all day.
It is hard when a child cannot communicate a need to you. It is important for anyone working with special needs children to remember that sometimes behaviors or physical body changes, or in Jazz's case lack of changes, can be a sign of something wrong.
Much Love!
