New Diagnosis: Raynaud's

3/19/11

So this week is the start of an all new rollercoaster ride for our family. 

Eli has had problems with his hands this winter, which we wonder if it has something to do with his sensory deficit problems.  We would walk Ella to the bus stop every morning, but when it got cold out we wouldn’t be out there long and Eli would start crying.  His hands would be bright red, and at times purple tipped and we weren’t outside very long.  We would come inside and he’d be holding his hands out in front of him crying and unable to comfort himself because he sucks on his fingers but he couldn’t because they hurt.  Once his hands warmed back up he was fine again, but this happened multiple times and even with gloves on  (which he doesn’t like to keep on).

We went to see the pediatrician to see what she thought and she said it sounded like Raynaud’s Phenomenon, but she hasn’t had someone this young (1 ½) have it before so she wanted to do some research first.  Last week we got a call with information on how to protect him if it is Raynauds and to come in to get blood tests to rule out other things that may cause this problem.  The blood tests all came back fine, which is good.  That means something isn’t wrong causing this, but it also means he has Raynauds and it’s something we will have to live with.

Raynauds is: (cut and pasted from the Mayo clinic website http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/raynauds-disease/DS00433 ) Raynaud's disease is a condition that causes some areas of your body — such as your fingers, toes, tip of your nose and your ears — to feel numb and cool in response to cold temperatures or stress. In Raynaud's disease, smaller arteries that supply blood to your skin narrow, limiting blood circulation to affected areas.  Treatment of Raynaud's disease depends on its severity and the presence of associated conditions. For most people, Raynaud's disease is more a nuisance than a disability. Raynaud's disease is more than simply having cold hands and cold feet, and it's not the same as frostbite. Signs and symptoms of Raynaud's depend on the frequency, duration and severity of the blood vessel spasms that underlie the disorder. Raynaud's disease symptoms include:

§  Cold fingers and toes

§  Sequence of color changes in your skin in response to cold or stress

§  Numb, prickly feeling or stinging pain upon warming or relief of stress

During an attack of Raynaud's, affected areas of your skin usually turn white at first. Then, the affected areas often turn blue, feel cold and numb, and your sensory perception is dulled. As circulation improves, the affected areas may turn red, throb, tingle or swell. The order of the changes of color isn't the same for all people, and not everyone experiences all three colors.

For more information on Raynaud’s check out the website or do an internet search.

Our instructions are to: keep his hands and feet warm and not exposed to cold, don’t put tight things on his hands or feet, keep him away from smokers (cigarette smoke causes more dilation in the arteries), and no caffeine.

So now we are most likely going to move to warmer climate after my graduate studies are done in 2014, and until then protect those little fingers as much as possible.  Florida is a good bet, being as we’ve always loved it down there and since we vacation there every year we will probably start spending some time while we’re down there driving around finding towns we may want to move to and get a feel for options there.  We still won’t be forever away from cold, since we definitely will be spending parts of December back in Indiana to be near family for the holidays, but worrying about it a few weeks a year instead of 6 months of the year sounds like a good deal to me.

Banana Bread

Okay, so this is a Sarah Original kind of recipe.  I've decided we aren't having much luck with the cookbook thing because there hasn't been anything we've all liked. 
My original banana bread recipe is as followed (I've made it hundreds of times before)

3 smashed bananas
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup melted butter
1 egg
1 tsp baking soda dissolved in 3 TBSP hot water
pinch of salt

Mix all together and bake at 350 degrees for about a hour. you know it's done when a butter knife comes out clean.

My modified recipe:

3 smashed bananas
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup King Author Gluten Free multipurpose flour blend
1/4 cup canola oil
Ener-G egg replacer- the equivilent of one egg on the package
1 tsp baking soda dissolved in 3 TBSP hot water
pinch of salt

Same baking instructions
looked like this:

So it looked the same and smelled the same.  Differences:  denser bread, and not as sweet tasting.  Also had a little after taste but not too bad considering.
It's a good start and best gluten free baking I've done so far.  I think I'll keep playing with this, trying maybe some applesauce in it for sweetness and moisture.  not sure yet what all I'll do.
Any suggestions are great!  But for a first try pretty decent!  All four of us ate it!

Rice Salad

So this is probably the most unappetizing thing my husband has heard of, because he hates rice.  But Eli usually eats rice right up so I thought I'd try this.  This is also from Cybele Pascal"s cookbook the Whole Food Allergy Cookbook.

The ingredients:
4 cups cooked rice
1 green bell pepper finely chopped
1 red bell pepper finely chopped
4 scallions chopped (white and green parts)
1/4 cup chopped red onion
8 radishes chopped
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
1 Tbsp Honey
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup chopped herbs (seems to be of choice, I used basil but she lists parsley and cilantro as other options)

Mix it all together and refridgerate.  That's it.
Here's the veggies:

Here's it all together:

So it smells okay, and actually before putting in the vinegar and olive oil it smelled divine with all those yummy veggies.  I haven't tried it....Mostly because I'm chicken.  I just don't care for vinegarettes so I still haven't tried it yet.  I need to because this might be good or just need some tweaking.  Lyle and Ella won't touch it for the rice.  Eli surprised me and wouldn't try it either.  I'm going to try to give it to him for lunch again tomorrow to see if he will. 
He didn't try the muffins I made much the first time either, but after that he had at least 2 a day because he loved them!
So we'll be brave and try for lunch.  It would make an easy picnic thing for him if he likes it.

Basic Muffins

Yesterday, one of the many things on my to-do list was to bake Eli friendly muffins.  It is a simple recipe from the Whole Foods Allergy Cookbook. 
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a muffin pan with muffin liners.  Use an electric mixer and mix 1 cup light agave nectar and 1/2 cup canola oil.  then add 1 1/2 cup of applesauce and 1 tsp vanilla extract. 
In a seperate bowl mix 1 1/4 cup oat flour, 1 1/4 cups barley flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking soda, and 1/2 tsp salt.  Add dry ingredients to wet and mix until just combined. 

Fill muffin liners to rim and bake in  center of oven for 30-35 minutes until golden brown on top.

These turned out pretty good, not much flavor but there are a few variations like banana and berry muffins.  The insides still had some batter on some of the muffins so I probably shouldn't have filled the cups as much, and there were four more after this batch and they collapsed into themselves so I'm not sure what that means.
Eli ate about 1/2 of one and I'm the only other person to try it so far and I only took a bite.  We'll see if some jelly or something perks them up!

Basic Biscuits

Okay... these didn't turn out like they were supposed to.  They are supposed to make a dough that you punch out biscuits from after rolling them out.  They didn't.  So I made drop biscuits.  Problem number two...they don't stay together.  They crumble a lot and Lyle and I agreed that they would be much better with butter or a gravy slathered all over them.  Ella wouldn't eat them....BUT Eli LOVED them!  He ate two (more like 1 1/2 after the crumbling).  So here's what I did.

1 cup oat flour
1 cup barley flour
1 tsp salt
5 tsp double acting baking powder
  Whisk these together then add...
5 Tbsp Vegetable shortening (I couldn't find soy free so used his butter type stuff, which may have been part of the problems)
  and cut in with two knives or pastry blender until consistency of coarse meal.
Then add 2/3 cup of rice milk (maybe cut it down?)
  The recipe says if it's dry to add more but not what to do if it's too wet!
Here you are supposed to lay out on floured surface and roll and cut biscuits, I just dropped them on my cookie sheet.

Bake about 12 minutes or until brown on top (mine took longer, about 20 minutes)

I was looking forward to baking after getting the right flours...but I'm not so sure now!  The one good thing is that they had none of the after taste that everyone but Eli can't get past when eating other allergy friendly foods.
I'm hoping that when I make muffins, they will turn out better because the batter is supposed to be moise and these "biscuits" were about the consistency you would expect of muffins but without flavors such as fruits.

Pasta Salad

I finally got around to some more cooking and yesterday I made two things.  A pasta salad and biscuits. 
So the pasta salad is first.
You take 1 lb of short pasta and cook per package directions, I used the spiral pasta we all like that is gluten free.
You then mix with the following items:
 1/2 cup olive oil
 20 sun dried tomatoes cut into small pieces
 20 small black olives cut up
 1 cup chopped fresh basil
 1 can artichoke hearts drained and cut into small wedges
 10 cherry tomatoes quartered
 2 cups grilled chicken cut into bite sized pieces (optional)
 salt and pepper to taste

Let all of this reach room temperature then cover and refrigerate.  Serves 6-8.

The judges are still out on this since no one but Eli has tried it yet.  Eli ate some at dinner last night but we had another pasta dish Lyle made up and Eli ended up mixing the two together.  So, I'm going to try it for his lunch today because I'm hoping to use it as a packed lunch option when we go on vacation.
I'll let you know. 
Here's Lyle's made up pasta dish...he calls it pretend hamburger helper, which of course has no hamburger in it.

He browned turkey sausage then added cornstarch to the grease to start a gravy.  He then added vegetable broth until it was the consistancy he wanted.  He boiled the noodles seperate (gluten free) and added frozen peas and canned mushrooms to the meat.  After the noodles were cooked he threw it all together for a few minutes and added salt and peper and that's it.  Eli, Ella and Lyle all ate good portions.  I didn't feel well and didn't eat anything for dinner.