Listmates, I have been reading with great interest the recent
discussions on child weight gain and eosiniphil counts.

Re: weight gain..Aaron was only a couple of days old, readmitted to the
hospital with severe infantile jaundice when his intestinal symptoms
began...severe (explosive, really) gas and diarrhea.  Docs of all
stripes swear no connection between this and the jaundice.

After some trials, we figured out that eliminating dairy from my diet
helped with the symptoms.  Aaron flourished at the 90 to 95th
percentiles for height and weight.  We called him Moose!

I have told our story before, so I won't go into the details here, but I
will say that at six months, when Aaron began solid foods, he began
having strange and scary intestinal symptoms...He never had any known
dairy, but we didn't know about all those pesky hidden things in
prepared foods, and no docs in our sphere knew enough to suspect
allergy.  Terrible weight loss!  He was 21 lbs at 6 months, but 17+ at a
year!  Still no help from docs.  Continued poor weight gain, intestinal
symptoms, and then developmental concerns, as well.

Here's what finally got us some help, and ultimately (a long and scary
road!) an allergy diagnosis: elevated eosiniphils.

His eos remained high for long after all dairy was eliminated...Docs
said that his body would heal, and they would gradually return to
normal. But they haven't.

Now, Aaron is healthy and growing again, and turning three this month,
he is in the 30th to 50th percentiles, depending on charts, when he's
weighed and measured, etc.  But, his eosiniphil count is still pretty
high.  The ped doesn't know what to do, but I do.  We are going to see a
holistic allergist we heard about from another family with severely
allergic children who were not getting satisfactory help from
conventonial medical providers.  They say this doctor changed their
lives from horrible to livable.

And though we are past the horrible stage, having such high eos for so
long (two years) is nagging at me.  Could it be another allergy
looming?  Could it be another health issue we are missing?

Our homeopathic physician concurs that follow-up is needed...someone who
will do a little detective work.  And, by coincidence, he recommends the
same holistic allergist!  I understand that there may be some newer,
more reliable methods of testing, and that managing allergic episodes
with natural remedies (NOT for the anaphylactic, I would guess!!) is
possible.

I'll let you all know what happens in this story.

Thanks for all the great info.  I don't think I would be half as
confident with Aaron without the folks on this list!

Dale Robin Lockman, Ima (Mom) to Seth & Aaron
West Kennebunk, Maine