New Diet

My older two kids have been healthy. My twelve year old had her tonsils out. My 9 year old was tongue tied, had surgery and speech therapy. Otherwise, healthy children. Then came the other two.
So, my three year old has mastocytosis. He was diagnosed in March of 2006--he was 7 mos old. We have had a pretty easy time of it compared to other kids with this rare disease, but have recently become aware that changing our diet to preservative/dye free will further decrease his symptoms. His main symptoms are flushing (he turns red, mostly on his face/ears), and behavior. He becomes wild, hits/cries/claws at us/throws things. It's like a temper tamtrum X 1000. He is on daily meds--Zyrtec and Zantac, but had noticed an increase in his behavioral symptoms in January or so....so instead of adding another medication, we changed our diet.
I found it very intimidating at first. But, Trader Joe's has proven to be a wonderful store to shop at. We noticed a change for the better the very first day. We put him to bed that night and didn't have the screaming, crying and hitting that we had been experiencing for months before. It's been pretty good since then. We can definately tell when he gets something with a preservative. Today for example. He ate chocolate...a lot of chocolate. It's hard to say no when he wants to eat a chocolate bunny. Tonight we had crying. It's not as intense, but still not great. It's not worth him eating something bad to have his behavior worsen. I wonder if he feels physically bad. He never fights me when I tell him something is bad for his body. He doesn't argue with me. He just doesn't eat it. But today, I felt bad so I let him eat. Hmm. Live and Learn.
My 17 mos old had an allergy appointment last week. He was previously diagnosed with an egg allergy. We have always had trouble with his diet. He never tolerated me eating/drinking dairy (cow's milk protein) when I was nursing him...and that was a full 12 months. I gave him an egg yolk at 9mos old, something I did with the other three kids at about that age, and within minutes his eyes were red, itchy, his face got red, his breathing got raspy. I gave him Benadryl immediately and made an allergy appointment. Sure enough, he is severly allergic to eggs. His skin test for cow's milk protein was negative, but whenver he's on it he develops a rash all over his body. It's like a combo eczema and red bumpy rash....so we consider him allergic. We have had him off dairy and eggs but the eczema persisted so I took him to a different allergist this past week. His skin test was positive for peanuts. Bummer. That's not one you outgrow. Soooo, in addition to preservative/dye free we are egg, dairy and peanut free. Geesh. We have become experts in reading labels. The extra bonus was that the allergist heard a heart murmur. I am worried since his pediatrician has never heard it. Is this something that can develop or was it always there?? We are going to the pediatrician tomorrow. I am nervous.
All this makes me wonder what the hell is going on???? How can I get two basically heathy kids, and then 6 years later have two kids who have all these health issues?? I don't think I'm the only one who is wondering what's going on with the food allergies. I sure hope there is some serious research going into this.
Well, I guess that's all for now. There are some things going on in the periphery. My 3 yr old will also need some more lab tests to determine if his disease is systemic, which equals permanent versus one he will outgrow. That should be done in the next month. Our insurance company just approved the test (how does someone sitting in an office get to decide whether or not my son has a medical test???) so that will be soon. That's another whole topic. Thanks for reading.

Kristy