The Last Ditch Effort

Yesterday, our little Abby had a pretty rough day. She was absolutely miserable with her acid reflux from afternoon on, and she is still uncomfortable. Since it started storming heavily last night, I ended up putting her in the bed with us because she was scared by the heavy thundering outside. I felt her thrash and jerk from pain all night long, and she vomited almost everything she ate. Adding rice cereal to a few pumped bottles of breast milk every day has helped a lot, but it still has not gotten her reflux under control.

So, the last possible thing we can try is the one I have avoided the most. It's called an elimination diet. Since it is possible that Abby's stomach is just overly sensitive at this point, certain foods can trigger the reflux and make it worse. For the next two weeks, I am going to try to avoid all of the foods on the "trigger list" and keep a food diary of what I eat. We'll monitor Abby every day and see if her reflux improves any. For the next 2 weeks, I am giving up chocolate, caffeine, tea, coffee, apples, bananas, citrus fruits, broccoli, cauliflower, corn, peppers, dairy products, fried foods, fatty foods, tomatoes, and many others... No fun. This basically describes 95% of my diet.

Bryan and I are wondering if there is correlation to my diet and really bad reflux days with Abby. For example, yesterday's diet included: Honeynut cheerios for breakfast, shrimp etoufee (mild but did have rotel and green peppers in it) and rice for lunch, Starbucks frappucino in the afternoon, pepperoni calzone for supper, and chocolate covered apple slices for dessert.

Everything I mentioned, except for the rice and cheerios, are potential offenders. Maybe, my diet had something to do with yesterday being a really horrible day. At the very worst, I'll just eat very mildly for 2 weeks and miss chocolate and coffee terribly. At the very best, we'll get Abby's reflux under control and eliminate miserable days altogether. Say a prayer!