Kayla put this house through a lot of turmoil over the past year. With her dairy allergy, reflux and Failure To Thrive (FFT) dx (they all go hand-in-hand), it made for some scary times. It took us many-many months of doctor’s appointments and tests and feeding therapy to get Kayla out of her dx of FTT. She’s now doing wonderful – eating great and gaining weight as she should be. She’s even played a little catch-up.

But, Alysa on the other hand seems headed down the same path as her big sister. Although, she has no known food allergies (although she has never had dairy yet), she was born in the 50th % for weight and at 1 year, dropped into the 5th %. We had tried to hold off judgment (me and her doctors) for a little while b/c between 9 and 12 months, she needed an increase in her Prevacid (for acid reflux), then she was sick with colds a lot and had a sinus infection. Of course, she won’t eat while she’s sick. She only gained 1 pound from 9 to 12 months. Now, she’s on her umpteenth cold and her 2nd sinus infection, which means it’s her 2nd round of antibiotics and it’s only December. And…she lost 4 ounces since Dec 5th. So she’s not doing too good. Every day, I try to hold back that feeling of dread and panic that is forcing its way to the surface. And to make it all worse, when Kayla was a year, I was very overwhelmed at the thought of feeding her. I was just entering the area of living and eating dairy-free. But now, I’m a pro at that. Alysa has a much more varied diet than Kayla did at her age. She eats meats – some in bites, some ground up with her pasta. But, she eats it. I know of many ways to add fat and calories to their meals and we do them. So she should be better off than Kayla, right? Apparently NOT!

As it was getting close to the 2 week mark for her latest “cold”, it started to creep into my had that this could be allergies. She basically seems to always have a cold/runny nose. She’ll have a day or two where she is fine and then it hits again. And the past month of her on and off colds, we have all been fine. Her Ped suggested the same thing this week (so I’m not the only one). So off we are heading to the Allergist on January 2nd. That should be fun taking my 1 year for allergy testing by myself with my 2 ½ year old. Yay! LOL Kayla had allergy testing done at 8 months and wasn’t bothered by the skin tests. I can only hope Alysa is the same, although I know her threshold for pain is much lower…

I of course don’t want her to have allergies, but in some ways, it will be a relief if she does. Maybe then we can come up with a plan to manage them so she won’t get sinus infections and need antibiotics all the time.

So I’ll be filling you all in as the latest health saga unfolds…