Two Weeks of Spilling- Still Med Free!

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”
― Hippocrates 

Emma Kate had a solid 12 weeks of negative urine and no meds, hooray!!! And can you believe her doctor was surprised I knew exactly how long it had been?? I mean, it is sort of a BIG deal. Anyway, then she caught a cold :(. It was for sure a bummer to see the color on that stick getting darker by the day. I truly never thought I would care so much about my child's urine! However disappointing, this time was different than the last...for me anyway. I had decided a while back I was going to trust God no matter what! Of course I have always trusted God, but this was a new trust I was seeking. I put my prayer for Emma Kate on my mirror and have been diligently praying it each day, several times. I also had everyone we know start praying. God has been renewing my walk with Him and that's why this time was different.

The last time I saw protein in my daughter's urine I researched everything I could to find something to help her. And I stuck God in between all that...frantically praying as I drove to the store to pick up some herbs for her. He was not my focus, Emma Kate was. This time I had a PEACE. That "peace that passes all understanding"-yes, that was wonderful.  I did not cry, I did not fear, I just trusted God and did what I knew to do. I have to say it is not an easy balance between trusting God and doing your part too. I have to daily work to make sure my focus stays on God, rather than getting caught up in what I can do for her. "Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding" Proverbs 3:5.

 All along this journey I have prayed for WISDOM. And the Lord has been faithful to show me things. He helped me stumble across a website that has given me a wealth of knowledge in treating the human body naturally. From this site I came up with the special "kidney tea" I make for Emma Kate. God also prompted me to put raw apple cider vinegar in all of Emma Kate's drinks while she was spilling protein. Initially this was to help her get over the cold, and then I realized how much it was helping her to not swell, so I kept it up! That stuff does amazing things for the human body! Here is a list of the health benefits of raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar-

Check out these ingredients and what they do for you:

Potassium – helps to prevent brittle teeth, hair loss and runny noses.

Pectin – helps to regulate blood pressure and reduce bad cholesterol.

Malic Acid – gives ACV the properties of being anti-viral, anti-bacterial & anti-fungal.

Calcium – helps create strong bones and teeth.

Ash – gives ACV its alkaline property which aids your body in maintaining proper pH levels for a healthy alkaline state.

Acetic Acid – It appears that this acid slows the digestion of starch which can help to lower the rise in glucose that commonly occurs after meals.

1 tablespoon of Raw Apple Cider Vinegar mixed in 4 ounces of purified water after a meal has been used as a natural remedy for heartburn and as a replacement for toxic heartburn medications.

Raw Apple Cider Vinegar may help improve bowel irregularity, thereby removing toxins from the body at a faster rate.

Helps clear up skin conditions and blemishes giving a smoother texture and complexion.

Raw Apple Cider vinegar may also help with joint pain and stiffness.

Apple Cider Vinegar helps to break down fats so that your body can use them rather than store them. For this reason, many diets include ACV in their regimen.

On a small scale, ACV was studied by researchers at Arizona State University. The preliminary study was published in the Diabetes Care journal. It reported that ACV helps reduce levels of glucose.

This information is from www.globalhealingcenter.com

HERE IS WHAT WORKED FOR US:

TEA TIME~
*Disclaimer- It needs to be stated that I am not a doctor and all the things listed on this blog should be reviewed by your personal health care professional before trying.* I am just a mom, hoping to help others by sharing our experiences.

There are two different teas I made for Emma Kate when her protein was spilling.

1.) Dandelion leaf tea- boil 1 cup of water and add a good pinch of the dried leaves. Cook down to about a 1/2 cup (10-15 minutes) cool, and drink. 
2.) Raspberry tea- boil 1 cup of water and add 4 juniper berries, a good pinch of ginger root, and good pinch of raspberry leaf. Cook down to 1/2 cup (10-15 min) cool, and enjoy!

***IMPORTANT NOTE! I READ THAT TAKING JUNIPER BERRIES WHEN YOU HAVE AN INFLAMED KIDNEY IS NOT GOOD. Otherwise, they are good for the kidneys in small doses. They never bothered my daughter but we will use them very sparingly in the future. Any combination of the above tea ingredients (minus the juniper) seem to work great when spilling, or not spilling. We have daily "tea time" now, right before dinner. Usually raspberry leaf and, or dandelion leaf. My daughter has gotten so used to it that if we miss a night she will remind me! I bought her a special Hello Kitty cup that we use only for tea time, to try and make it a bit more exciting :).

-It has been my experience that adding raw honey to the tea makes them less effective so we drink it plain. I give Emma Kate one of each of these most days, or at least one a day. Along with about 3 ml of raw apple cider vinegar in all of her drinks and she is sure to be peeing all day! Peeing all day means continuing to flush toxins from the body, keeping the kidneys going, and not swelling (which means much less potential for infection and more time to heal naturally).  I also gave Emma Kate miralx a couple times to ensure her bowels were emptied of toxins. This is very important in the healing process for the body. Especially if you are spilling protein, because the tendency is for one to stop going to the restroom. I don't love the idea of miralax due to the chemical nature, but it's easy and works great.  A natural alternative that works really well on occasion is 100% prune juice (about 4 oz for a small child).

My experience with all this:
The second time Emma Kate started spilling protein she started swelling some almost immediately, even though she was eating almost no sodium. She got put on prednisone and didn't start peeing until I started making the teas for her. That night her numbers started going down. The last time she started spilling I immediately started doing the tea and ACV treatment, along with miralax. I let her have much more sodium than the last time and she had NO swelling. Her face was slightly puffy two mornings and the night before she went back to 0 her arms were slightly puffy. And that was with 2 weeks of spilling! I love that God has given us natural ways to care for our bodies! Here were how here numbers looked:

Sunday (start of cold)- trace, 30, 100, 300+, 300-, 100
The second Sunday- light trace (cold is gone but I forgot to make her tea)
Monday-100 (was warm and slept all day- seemed to have caught a one day thing her brother had)
Tues-300, 300+, 200ish, 100+, 100-?...Hard to tell with those colors!
The third Sunday-lighter than negative! Praise God!
Mon- neg, neg, neg......

I also want to mention that if she is spilling protein I greatly limit gluten, sugar, eggs, all allergenic foods and foods that are prone to aid inflammation. I try to give her plenty of foods that are anti-inflammatory and natural diuretics. Lots of fresh fruit and veggies of course, and all her vitamins and supplements (fish oil, Vit D, Vit C, PRP spray, probiotics, immune boosters and allergy support drops).

To Summarize: we made it through 2 weeks of spilling protein and DID NOT HAVE TO GET ON MEDS! All glory to God, she went back to negative naturally :-)

Allergy Testing

It's been a while! Here's the latest......

It's been about two months now since we had the Elisa-ACT done for Emma Kate.  This is delayed food allergy testing done by blood. I felt it was important to do this to give her body the best chance it has at fighting off invaders, rather than keeping it busy with things that should not cause an immune response.

Such a big girl!
We had to fill 3.5 tubes with blood in order to do the test....quite a lot for such a little person! It was the biggest challenge actually finding a place to draw that much blood on a child, but we finally did. By the time we got there (3rd place we had been to in a row!) both of my kids were pretty over it....especially considering they had waited so patiently for an HOUR at the first place, just to be told they could not draw her blood. And, Emma Kate could not drink or eat anything until the blood was drawn. Ugh! Very frustrating.
 Anyhow, once we found a person to do it, to my delight Emma Kate hopped in the enormous chair and stuck her arm right out.  She had to be stuck a couple times in each arm but barely shed a tear! She really is tough (at least when she wants to be). At last, we had completed the much dreaded task. Now, I just had to make sure it was packaged correctly and send it off! I definitely kept my fingers crossed that it would get to the right place with no problem. Especially since it was time AND temperature sensitive, and a steaming 100 degrees outside. Thank God, it made it :-).

We quickly got the results...
Of the 144 substances tested, Emma Kate only had a reaction to 8 things and 1 food group. It was no surprise the food group it said to entirely avoid was dairy. However, it WAS very surprising that she had a strong reaction to peanut, white rice, and Green dye #3. Also, a moderate reaction to lemon. The peanut definitely got my attention. It just so happened that a while back when she had a relapse she had just started eating a peanut butter cereal with soy milk every day. The DAY she started eating it was the day her numbers started jumping...100, 30, trace, 300....all over the place.  I think it was the combination of these two things that caused her to start spilling. Doctors of course refuse to acknowledge food could play any role with NS, but sometimes you just have to go with your mommy instinct. We will NOT be eating that cereal with soy milk EVER again.

I do think it was very beneficial to do the testing. Before we got her results I used lemon ALL the time to cook and I would have never known it bothered her! Also, since we eat a lot of gluten free things (she is not entirely GF anymore, just DF), she was eating a good bit of white rice. We pay close attention to that now. The testing made me much more aware of things that were happening in her body. Most people do not realize that you can have delayed food sensitivities that do not come in the form of a rash or anaphylactic shock. They can be sneaky and mess with your body in seemingly unrelated ways.