A-Ha!

We've had he first a-ha moment of this rotation diet. Walker reacted to something we ate yesterday. I should have figured it out last night, when it took him 2 hours to fall asleep. He would drift off, sleep for about 1 minute, jerk and wake himself awake, screaming bloody murder. Over and over again for 2 hours. It was hell.

This is how Ally used to sleep. For her first 2 years, she literally never slept without my hand on her body. That drifting off/waking screaming pattern literally lasted all night for several months before I finally eliminated dairy from her diet (she was around 20 months old). I was so tired from taking care of her in the middle of the night that I could barely function.

The brain is a wonderful thing, the way it protects us from prior unpleasantness. I had literally blanked out much of her sleeplessness until I saw it in her brother last night. I didn't recognize it for what it was right away, but when I looked at Walker this morning and saw his face, I knew immediately. I couldn't even call them allergic shiners--it was more like dark caverns running down his face. And a few hours later, he had diarrhea.

This is the rotation diet working: his overall allergic response has been toned down enough that we can see the things that are bothering him more clearly. It's how I identified Ally's problem with soy and citrus. Now the detective work begins. The major suspects from yesterday are chicken and corn. Corn is a common allergen and there is a history of meat allergies in Peter's family, so it could be either.

I'm praying that it's corn, because that's easy for us to cut out. We could live without chicken, too, though homemade chicken bone broth is a major source of bone-building minerals in our diet, which would make losing it a big issue in our dairy-free household.