Baby B and FPIES

     So it all began with that awful rice cereal. We decided to wait to start solids until B was 6 months old and until my husband got home from his summer deployment, since I wanted him present for this milestone. She started out ok with it, but then after the first time she ate it (about 5 hours later to be exact), she had what we thought was a very bad episode of reflux when asleep, right after going to bed. Her reflux symptoms hadn't been great lately, so we foolishly chalked it up to that.
     Fast forward a couple weeks later, when we decided to try it again. This time she threw up a couple times at about 4 hours after ingestion, and later on she had some nasty diapers for a brief period of time. This time, I called the nurse line and they thought it was a stomach bug and I also thought it could be that as well, despite the fact that my daughter has never been in the care of anyone other than myself (or my husband or close friend) and no one around us at the time was sick. So the more I thought about it, I wondered if the added iron in the cereal was bothering her (when she was a newborn, she couldn't tolerate the iron supplements I was on through the breastmilk and once I stopped taking them, she seemed to do much better). So I decided to make homemade rice cereal (very easy to do, btw) and try it another week later.
     Fast forward again. This time, she only would take two tiny bites of the rice cereal and within two hours, was profusely vomiting. A few hours after the vomiting stopped, the nasty diapers began. So once she was settled down and I decided this was no stomach bug, I consulted Google. Not the best medical source, but I wanted to see what I could come up with. After googling reasons that would cause her to have such a delayed reaction to a food, I stumbled across FPIES. Reading the symptoms, I got chills. It described her reactions to a T and reading on, there was a lot of information to be concerned about. Stories of babies going into shock, experiencing low blood pressure, multiple foods that are not tolerated, etc etc. So we ditched all ideas of solid foods (I was still breastfeeding her just as much as always, of course, so it wasn't a big deal) and awaited her well-baby check up scheduled for a week later.
     I took the information I found into the pediatrician's office and lo and behold, he supported my assumptions. There really wasn't anything he could do for her, but he agreed that there was good reason to suspect FPIES and that we should proceed with solid foods as if she indeed had the condition. So we extended our food trials to one week instead of a few days, tried avoiding all common triggers, and tried to go on about our normal lives. . . Stay tuned for part two!