Is Snow Safe for FPIES Kids to Eat? (With an FPIES Reaction Video)

Zac had an FPIES reaction yesterday.

The proof came, as always, with a poopy diaper. His first diaper of the day looked great, but since we are trialing a food, I tested it for blood anyway.

It was…inconclusive. It could have been blood. It might not have been. Hmm…

Half an hour later, another poopy diaper. Once again I tested it for blood. This time, it was positive for blood. (I always want to say “negative” when I report this. Being positive is not something I want to associate with bloody diapers!)

After the diapers, I put him down for a nap. He had a really hard time sleeping comfortably. He woke up once needing to be nursed back to sleep, and he sweated profusely even though he was only wearing a diaper and had no blankets on him.

As soon as he woke from his nap, Darrel carried him to the living room, where he promptly slid off the couch, ran to the wall and stood staring at it from a few inches away for several minutes. This is very weird for him.

Suddenly, with no provocation, he turned, ran behind the couch, and began screaming.

I came in to try and calm him, and this is just four minutes of what happened next:

Now, some might look at this and think this is just a child having a temper tantrum, but that’s not what is happening here.

In this video, Zac is in pain. He can’t stop screaming. He’s flailing away from me when I try to touch him.

It took almost 20 minutes to get him calmed down, and he was prone to having episodes like this the rest of the day.

This is not normal for Zac.

Last night he slept so badly, he woke me up every hour to hour and a half all night long. I’m exhausted.

So now to discern the cause. The obvious answer is pork, right?

Well, maybe not.

An hour or so before the first poopy diaper on Monday, Zac handed me a partially eaten ladybug. (While he hiccuped in my arms.)

And then, of course, there were the large amounts of snow we foolishly allowed him to eat Sunday.

“Snow?” I can hear you thinking. “Has she lost her ever-lovin’ mind? Snow is harmless!”

Au contraire, my friends.

In my desperate attempt to find any cause of the reaction that might NOT be the pork, I asked the corn-free people whether snow could be corny.

Check out what they sent me:

Eating Snow
Is Eating Snow Safe?
Why Children Shouldn’t Eat Snow

Yeah. In short, snow FORMS by attaching to a particle in the air. Doesn’t matter of the particle is a bit of pollen or pollution. Then it attaches itself to more ‘particles’ in the air as it falls.

So if the freshly fallen snow washed the atmosphere above our heads clean of some pollen or pollutant that Zac is reactive to, well, we gleefully fed him a few bowls full of it on Sunday.

Excuse me for a moment while I share my unedited thoughts: “For Christ’s sake! SNOW? Snow could be why he’s pooping blood? How in the world am I going to keep this child healthy and thriving if something as innocent as freshly fallen snow could make him sick?!”

Let’s not forget the ladybug, either. He’s reacted to tree buds and crickets, so obviously, nature is not his friend.

Further complicating things is the fact that Darrel and I went to the movies on Friday for our anniversary.

Why does that complicate things?

Well, what do YOU snack on at the movies?

Popcorn. Right.

Since popcorn is obviously not allowed on our house, Darrel seized that moment of freedom to indulge in a bag of popcorn for himself.

We were both so giddy at the thought of a break that we didn’t think it through.

Not only were we sitting in seats that were probably covered in popcorn residue, which then transferred to our clothes, hair and hands, but Darrel ate popcorn – and I kissed him before he washed his mouth!

I may have accidentally corned myself and my son on Friday!

(I feel incredibly stupid for not thinking this through ahead of time. I’m going to simply state that the idea of two hours away from the kids being a normal person was so heady and exciting that we simply lost our minds. It’s the only explanation I can come up with for not thinking the popcorn all the way through before the fact.)

So now we pull the pork (much to Zac’s dismay),’ wait for baseline, and reintroduce the pork to see what caused the reaction this time: date night popcorn, piggy, ladybugs, or snow.

(Am I in some bizarre alternate universe here? The absurdity of our situation is not lost on me. I feel like I’m being Punked every single day.)

I feel sick, y’all. Is it too much to ask for a food trial to go smoothly?

I mean, obviously it’s too much to ask for some safe foods…could I even just get a food trial that doesn’t have to be re-trialed, and re-trialed, and re-trialed??

Today, FPIES is kicking my butt. I honestly don’t know whether I want to cry, hit something, or scream. They all seem like decent options right now.

I’ll keep you posted; in the meantime, would you mind praying for the absurd? Please pray that my son got corned because I kissed my husband after he ate popcorn, or that half of a ladybug made Zac sick, or that he reacted to freshly fallen snow, because I’d really like the pork to be safe for him. Thank you!

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What’s the most ridiculous thing your child has ever reacted to?