GAPS Intro Diet Week 2

Hi, y’all.

I’ve been putting this post off, but it’s time for a recap of week 2 on the GAPS intro diet. If you haven’t read Week 1, you can do so here.

If you’ll remember, last week ended up with me on cloud nine, because for two days, my sweet six-year-old didn’t react to egg yolks in his soup.

That is, until the third day.

The Third Day

After giving him egg yolks for two days with ZERO reaction, on the third morning I put some into his soup. Everyone else was eating fine. He commented, “Mama, my lip is swelling.”

I don’t know about in your house, but in my house, and in my heart, that sentence sends waves of fear running down my spine. Today my reaction was denial.

“Are you sure, baby? Let me see.” And I could see something . . . the tiniest little blip on his lip. It was so hard to see, I doubted if it was anything. His lips were, and usually are, pretty badly chapped, so I couldn’t tell if it was just swelling from chapped lips, or if it was more.

But I told him not to finish his soup, just in case. I gave him Apis Mellifica, a homeopathic remedy for swellings, and sat there and tried not to worry. Ultimately, it never swelled any more than that, but it was enough for me to quit giving him egg yolk.

So the next day, I decided to do the sensitivity test again on him. Right before lunch, I placed a drop of egg yolk on his skin and let it dry. Sure enough, within 5 minutes, the skin was red and there were a few tiny hives – an immediate reaction.

Sigh.

I didn’t want to show him how I was really feeling. He has been working so hard at doing well on this diet, because he wants to be able to eat anything. And here he was, reacting again to egg yolks after two days of not reacting. It isn’t fair, y’all.

I made a deal with him – instead of egg yolks in his soup, he can have ghee (that’s clarified butter, and thankfully he can handle that without a problem) and that satisfied him. I told him we would continue healing on the diet and try again with the sensitivity test in a week or so.

How Do I Hide My Devastation?

I don’t know about you, but it’s pretty hard for me to keep devastation hidden off my face, especially when I’m flat-out devastated while eating lunch in front of my children, trying to keep it together.

Those two days of reaction-free eggs were surreal. It was like heaven, a thing of beauty. I felt like a 2,000 pound weight had been lifted from my shoulders for those two days. I didn’t have to watch my son like a hawk, I didn’t have to freak out about some egg contaminating his food . . . It was glorious. I felt freer than I had in a long, long time.

Here’s something I want you all to know: I do not want anyone under the assumption that I am perfect, or selfless, or always mature, or always do the right thing. Those of you who know me in person know better. I am utterly human. And I threw a tantrum in my heart on that day. Hours-long tantrum.

I cried. . . I bawled. I griped. I pleaded to God. IT ISN’T FAIR. It isn’t. Yes, even though it was my son that was the reason for starting this diet, I was selfishly not coming to very good terms with reality because *I* am SO SICK OF ALLERGIES. I hate them with a passion. I am tired of living in fear, with the constant weight on my shoulders. I am sick of watching my babies react to things. I’m sick of having to tell them at family events that they can’t have this fun food or this or having to buy special snacks for children’s church.

I’m tired of not being able to feed them some of the healthiest foods God made, when I know how much their little growing bodies need the nutrition.

This, in conjunction with how hard the rest of the time was on the diet, and the fact that my body is tired and fighting off toxins and addiction to sugar and other carbs, was just too much.

God is Always Good, All the Time

Speaking of God – I do want to make this clear: never once do I blame God for this happening. God is the Divine Author of everything Good. There are no food allergies in Heaven, where God’s will is done. In the bible, Jesus went around healing people, not making them sick. He healed all who came to Him.

So just in case you’re kind of wondering if I was mad at God about my son being able to have eggs for two days, then going back to reacting, I want you to know that I wasn’t. It’s the other guy – the enemy – that I have the beef with. The one who prowls about seeking to destroy.

My God has been my Rock.

Count Your Blessings, Even When You Don’t Feel Like It

My husband has also been my rock. I don’t know how I would get through orchestrating this diet without his support. I just can’t imagine it. He reminded me of the good:

• This egg reaction was SO much less severe than his previous one. It didn’t even warrant as severe.
• The other children are able to tolerate eggs, and if it weren’t for this diet, we wouldn’t have been able to learn that.
• We have been able to introduce ghee and everyone tolerates it. Ghee, my friends, is manufactured by angels in an especially divine part of heaven, I’m pretty sure. It’s a dairy product and we can have it. So that really is great.

My sweet second-oldest son must have noticed me feeling down. He went to work and made me 14 hearts out of paper. It’s times like that that really want to make me break down and cry. It was so touching and sweet. I can’t thank God enough for my family.

Essentially, it’s just like with other difficult times. You have to stop and realize what you’re thankful for and what you really have. My life is not that bad, even with the stress of food allergies. My kids’ lives are not that bad. Things are way worse for some people and I am so grateful to live under this roof with this rockin’ family.

It just took me a day or so to remember, that’s all.

Special Effects

So we are continuing healing. Day 12, for some reason, was the hardest. I had introduced coconut oil and cod liver oil and my body was detoxing a little more than normal. That night I took cell salts #9 and #10 to help with die-off. And in the morning I felt great.

I’ve been breaking out on the back of my neck. It’s detox, because I never break out on my neck. I’m glad my body is detoxing. And speaking of skin, our skin is soooo smooth these days. All those healing animal fats we’ve been eating have really changed our skin – it’s soft and sleek. Nice! No anti-wrinkle remedy needed, just good ol’ animal fats to do the trick.

I’ve noticed something else unusual. Normally, when I go outside, I immediately have to put on sunglasses; the Arizona sun is just too bright. I had read that this is caused by adrenal fatigue, but I hadn’t really looked into it very much. However, last week, I was at the grocery store and realized I hadn’t even needed my sunglasses to get there! My eyes didn’t hurt in the bright light. It was pretty neat because I was not expecting that in the least. (Speaking of eyesight, I came across this pretty cool post by Yogi Mami about how to improve eyesight. Just thought I’d share. 🙂 )

At the beginning of the week we were in Stage 2 of the Intro diet, and now we’ve moved through stage 3 and on to stage 4, because we are tolerating everything (except for eggs in my one son, and nuts because I haven’t introduced them yet) normally. My second son’s eczema is slowly fading, which is amazing, and my third son’s constipation has all but gone away. I believe the Coco Honey Fat Bombs have played a big part in that. My daughter is doing wonderfully as well.

There’s more healing to do. Stay tuned for next week. And if you think about it, we would appreciate any prayers you might send our way. If you know any GAPS families, think about them the way you would a family who has caught the stomach bug. It’s a rough time – they feel terrible and they are mourning the loss of the foods they used to be able to eat and the restaurants and everything – and they need extra love.

Love y’all, and thanks for listening,

Dandy

Read on for week 3 on the GAPS Intro Diet