Birdstump Barn

Joshua

I mentioned in my last post some concerns we have about mold and toxic materials in older homes. 

We took Joshua to a DAN! doctor last month.  He is an osteopath that specializes in allergies and environmental medicine.  We were happy with the type of practitioner he seems to be; a good combination of allopathic medicine, with all the access to prescription medicine and lab tests that goes with that, along with a healthy dose of willingness to participate in "quackery" (his words), if it works, and helps his patients.

After a very thorough history and a couple of hour long appt where he observed Joshua very carefully, he definitely thinks that Joshua may be dealing with some allergies, either inhalent, food, or both.  He sent us home with a test kit for a urine test that will test for several things that I can't remember, and also for gluten and casein peptides.  While a positive result for those peptides doesn't mean definitively that he is allergic to (or intolerant to) gluten and casien, it is a pretty strong indication, enough so that if we do get positive results, we will pull gluten from his diet as well as the casien that we have already eliminated. (As a side note, if my understanding is correct, for the test to be accurate regarding casien, we'll have to give it to him again for a few days prior to the test.  Oh, my....talk about asking for trouble!  Oh well...)

This doctor will also be doing some standard skin-prick allergy testing like I had done in highschool (I was allergic to so many things, cats, dogs, pollen of many varieties, wool, feathers, trees, grasses, mold, dustmites...you name it, it was probably on the list.)  To do this testing, though, we will probably have to sedate him, as I don't see him sitting nice and still while strange ladies with gloves on come at him with needles. 

Coming from the west coast, and living in a house with a chronically damp basement, this doctor suspects that mold may be a problem for Joshua, as well as dust-mites.  There are so many possibilities for allergens...

And last but not least, the "quackery"...sublingual challenges of a sort that I read about in the Doris Rapp book, "Is this your child" many years ago.   I don't remember how they are supposed to work, but I will just trust that they do.  We brought home one of the little dropper bottles, and have been practicing with Joshua, having him hold the drops under his tongue for the length of the "ABC song", before swallowing.  (We included an elaborate explanation involving invisible monter-buggies in his food, and how this water will help us know if there are any monster buggies hding in his food, and will help us "get them!" if there are any.)

So...now the only hard part is having enough faith to go ahead and spend the money for this testing.  We're anticipating that to complete the testing that I've described above will run close to $1000.  We do have the money...but with David so newly self-employed, it's pretty scary to spend it, knowing that it could be months before more money is coming in.  

So, all of this wonderment about allergies makes us particularly concerned about building materials, and old homes.  Is it perhaps an incredible blessing that the property we were led to had no house on it?  Surely, if it had, we would have just planned on living in and fixing up whatever home was on the property.  And perhaps we would have been stuck living in a house that would make Joshua sick.  Hard to say, but if allergies are causing some of his problems, it is a scenario that we easily could have gotten stuck in.  Praise the Lord that we are not. 

But, with all of this in mind, we really do need to find out for sure if there are things like mold, or formaldehyde off-gassing, or anything like that, that Joshua is reacting to, before we either begin building, or make plans to move an older home onto our property.    

So we pray that the Lord will bless David with work, and soon. 

And, in the meantime, I'm supposed to keep a detailed food and symptom diary for Joshua, for 2 weeks.  And because it's so easy to lose anything that I actually write down on paper, I'll be keeping it here.  So, feel free to skip those entries, unless you're really interested in knowing what we eat, and the variety of ways that Joshua gets himself in trouble..;-) 

Now I understand...

07:01, Monday, March 5, 2007 .. Posted by melm

Why I was led to that UK gal's gluten-free blog!!!!!!!! I hope you got the link. If not, let me know. I am thinking of sending her some linky love on my blog anyway, because the info she posted was fascinating to me. I hope things work out well with this Doc for Joshua.
BY THE WAY, I happened to actually LOOK at my calendar today and realized I owe you a BELATED BIRTHDAY GREETING!!!!!!!! :-) I hope you had a great one and have many wonderful memories compiled by the next one.
Tell E hi from all of us. Looking forward to hearing more about the other houses as possible materials, and yes, to the entries about the allergy testing too.

Take care!

old house vs. new ones

04:19, Tuesday, March 6, 2007 .. Posted by Anonymous

carrie,
I hope something works out for joshua.....a straw bale house may have less toxins, etc.
If allergies are a problem - that may be the way to go...... with missouri being so damp, I would think molds would be a problem in an old house.....
hang in there! We are all praying for you!
gloria