This post is a call for help for the Zundel family in Orem. The Zundels are Church members and close friends of my family. You can read the tragic story of the Zundels’ daughter Ashley, who can only eat rice, rice milk, turkey, potatoes and apple juice, here. Tammy Zundel is looking for recipes and would like to start a support group for parents in a similar situation.
The Millennial Star
Sounds like my four-year old, except his diet is self-imposed. I wish I knew how to help the family. If she is limited to only five foods, I am not sure what recipe would help ‘spice things up’ without adding to her misery. (Can she eat food cooked with spices???)
Brian, I’m not sure. I e-mailed a link on this post to the Zundels. Perhaps they can respond. My two-year-old goes for weeks where he only wants to eat about five things, but this is different: she literally can’t eat anything else without getting sick. She’s a great kid — she has a lot of energy. You would never know she had this problem.
weird, the article says she can only eat 5 foods, but the caption on the picture says she can eat “rice, potatoes, turkey, chicken, pork and a handful of fruits and vegetables”
According to the net, the girls condition is also called Milk Soy Protein Intolerance. It sounds similar to siliac disease, just with different ingrediants being the problem. There are cookbooks available for purchase.
Matt, I can tell you from what I’ve heard the Zundels continue to experiment with different things Ashley can eat. They try different foods for a while to see how she responds. It’s even more tragic that Ashley’s younger brother Preston may have this same condition.
I’m Ashley’s father and right now she is on a diet that has those five items in it as well as a few vegetables and apples. We still don’t know what is making her sick though. She’s been worse off these past three weeks than she has been in quite some time.
She is allergic to all wheat, corn, soy, milk, lactose, tree nuts, peaches, and I’m sure I’m missing something, but even after taking all of those from her diet she is still sick. She complains of severe stomach pains at least two to three times a day along with headaches and sore throats on some days. She has missed at least a day of school due to these each week this year (two days the past three weeks).
The good part is that she is so stubborn and strong willed that she doesn’t let it bother her too much. She is still able to play with her friends and when she starts feeling bad she just rests. A friend even took Ashley to her house in a stroller on Saturday because Ashley was too sick to walk. It was kind of cute. She’s a little large for a stroller.
This might sound a bit off the wall, but there are some studies using human milk therapeutically in severe celiac cases that might apply here- in healing the gut and helping with weight gain. Of course, it would probably need to be milk from someone on a similarly restricted diet to avoid any ‘piggy-back’ proteins, but that might be available from a milk bank. Worth investigating.
shoot, my comment didn’t display earlier today.
anyway, thanks for the link to their story, I emailed them. Our oldest doesn’t have that same condition as far as we know, but for some unknown reason he’s allergic to all foods but a very few, just like their girl. We’ve had an awful time finding a Dr to tell us why this is, or if it will get better, but in the meantime since the blood test results came back, he’s had had absolutely no wheat, milk, egg, corn, soy, peanut, and no fruit besides bananas.
A trace amount of corn in his rice milk’s “natural flavor” gave him hives and a painful raw rash on his bottom. Ditto for the time he accidentally had soy sauce on his plain rice at school.
he eats meat, veggies, and rice. Potatoes cooked in every shape, lots of raw veggies. Oh, and thank goodness for salt, pepper, and olive oil! that’s the only seasoning he can have .
Dallyn:
Your Comment, for some reason, breaks my heart. You and your girl will be in my thoughts and prayers.
Look on the bright side. Rice and vegetables is a pretty good diet.
I can sympathize. My kids are lactose intolerant and appear to not react well even to the lactose free milk. Unfortunately my little boy is anything but a fan of the soy “milk.” But trying to buy for kids when they are like this is amazingly hard. They also react to cheeros for some reason. My wife is paranoid that the have a gluten allergy – which would be very bad. But they don’t seem that bad yet.
I have a friend who is older and 5 years ago he developed symptoms like Ashley’s. He Passed out with pain and suffered severe allergy attacks. He stop eating wheat and things improved for six months or so then things got much worse until he ended up eating only chicken and rice for period of time. Over the years he has improved but still on a narrow diet. He told me to pass along a few things he has learned along the way.
Teas that help: Fennel, Valerian, Chamomile, and Peppermint.
Enteric coated peppermint oil pills were a life saver. There avaliable at http://www.helpforibs.com
He explained that his condition improved by eating soluble fiber!
Rotating foods on a 4 to 5 day rotation helped the allergy attacks.
Most doctors had nothing to offer that helped. Doing research on the internet and talking with people who had similar conditions provided the best results.
He recommends one MD. Dr Rodier in Draper, Utah 576-1086. This Doctor helps those who have not responded to other Doctors care.
My friend feels there is a disconnect with the brain and digestion that is at the root of the problem. The allergies are not the primary cause but develop as a result of the disconnect.
He also purchased a self-hypnosis CD from the website above that helped smooth out the digestion problems by reducing stress.
Lastly, he sought the Lord in prayer and asked the Lord to lead him to someone who had the gift to heal. He sought Priesthood blessings often and found one individual who did have the gift to heal. For him the healing came gradually over time.
Both he and I hope and pray that Ashley will find the key to dealing with her health problems.
To her parents,
My child has food allergies also not has many, but there is a utah allergy food network that we would like to let you now about http://www.utahfoodallergy.com/ there is also monthly meeting in layton utah that other moms get together and talk about ways to deal with food allergies we would like you to come to a meeting we meet on the the second wed of the month at the barns and noble in layton
this is a public meeting any parents of children with food allergies is welcome to join. if you would like more info you can contat me at foodallergies@gmail.com