Mint Tea and Blisters

This post title may imply the two are connected, but they are not. We have had two developments this week that I find rather significant.

The first is the introduction of organic peppermint tea. We have let Ellie sip mint tea in the past but she has never actually 'drank' it. Mint tea is part of the GAPS introduction diet, because it is good for the belly. Two days ago we gave Ellie her mint tea in a children's Starbucks travel cup, and she was thrilled. She drank so much tea that she skipped some bottles of her homemade formula (and yes we let her). She carried the cup around saying 'nummy!' and 'ood!', while rubbing her belly. The next day we gave her another cup. And we had day two of no poop.

This worried me because Ellie goes back and forth between constipation and diarrhea when she is not tolerating a food. We have worked hard to get her 'regular' and make sure she goes at the very minimum every other day, or else give her an enema on day two. It is extremely important (for everyone) to not let those toxins sit in the intestines and block digestion. Hoping to not resort to an enema I decided I would use what I now believe to be the magic pooping supplement (once tolerated). I DOUBLED her fermented cabbage juice and held my breath. This could be bad. Or good. The result? Shortly after that was the prettiest poo we have seen in some time! Mint tea? PASS! This desperate mommy is counting it as a new food, thank you very much!

Second on this week's development was a sporadic outbreak of blistery burn patches on Ellie's high back, with a few on her arms and chest area. They started as scratchy looking burns, and then quickly developed into yellow blisters surrounded by a yellow tinted red ring. This was shortly after I discovered a confrontational comment on a previous post suggesting her skin reactions to corn were actually impetigo. My first thought about these blisters - VOODOO? hehe. OK, not really.

The blisters actually looked a lot like the result of her corn patch testing done by the allergist, so it could be a corn exposure. There was also a yellow infection type tint, so maybe it was impetigo. I mean we do have a lot of chicken poop around at the moment. Better yet, I considered chicken pox, but the blisters were not forming in the right areas (darn. would like to get that out of the way). I went through all the normal questions - new laundry soap? bath soap? .....I racked my brain for clues. And I finally decided it must be a corn exposure, until another FPIES mom said 'oh I get those with lemons and limes'.

WHAT?! ooooh. crap. It's now mandarin season. And mandarins are LOVED in my house. AND as Ellie's healing has progressed, we have gotten lazier with hand washing and skin exposure. And daddy picked up some mandarins last Sunday at the market. For some reason citrus has always been on my be-majorly-careful list. That is not founded in anything other than knowing how much my hands smell like oranges after eating one, and knowing that the oils are really hard to scrub off.

Two nights of soap on the blisters while in the bath, and eliminating the mandarins = Presto. They are healing. It does appear that they will be leaving some small scars, like the corn has done in the past, which really BITES, but with time they should fade. It was a good lesson in not getting too comfortable. Darn citrus.