When my first son was born he had cradle cap─patchy pieces on his scalp which I tried to oil and wash off painstakingly. He also developed a rash on his stomach, then on his arms and legs. I creamed this using a prescription cream from the doctor. Had I known better then I’d would have stopped eating and drinking dairy products─as he turned out to have a dairy allergy that has lasted for seven years thus far. I breastfed him and believe that the protein from dairy irritated his body. I often also wonder what other kind of discomfort it caused him. Did it give him cramps? Gas? Make him cry more? I finally figured out he had a dairy allergy and removed all dairy before he was a year old. His eczema was greatly reduced though his skin was still a bit dry, especially in the winter. Now, for the past year, since introducing fish oil into his diet, his dry skin isn’t a problem at all. We occasionally use a little cream, but mostly just on his hands and only in the winter.

I’ve heard friends talking about the oozing red rash behind their child’s elbow or knee. Or they talk of the variety of creams they’ve tried. One of the mothers interviewed in my book was so adamant about finding the cause of the eczema or rash on her infant that kept him and her up at night for weeks from the probable burning and itching feelings that she asked herself and her doctor over and over until she found the solution herself. She found her son was allergic to dairy by removing it from her own diet and seeing his eczema “clear up by ninety percent,” in her words. Sometimes the discovery can take place by accident. In Robyn O’Brien’s book, The Unhealthy Truth, she discovered her son’s eczema cleared up when they went on vacation and he didn’t drink the many cups of milk that he normally consumed. Upon returning home and to his old habits, the eczema returned, as well as his cough and earaches. Eventually Robyn weaned him from milk, yogurt, cheese and other dairy products, which healed him.[1]

Over the years, I read a lot about itchy, red, bumpy rashes to try to understand why eczema and food allergies are created. I developed the following layperson’s understanding: Eczema is caused by the inability of the infant’s immature digestive system (or a child's or adult's digestive system) to digest certain proteins, such as the dairy proteins, which can be hard to break down. These hard-to-digest proteins travel through the digestive system and go into the blood stream undigested. The liver then tries to cleanse the blood stream of this undigested protein. This works for a while, but then the liver becomes overloaded and cannot clean the bloodstream sufficiently. As a result, the immune system comes to the rescue and builds antibodies to attack the foreign proteins. Once the immune system creates antibodies, the allergic reaction is in place. The immune system’s antibodies tell the body to attack that foreign substance as if it were a virus or disease, which can cause the body to go into overdrive, possibly resulting in anaphylactic shock, or less severe yet equally devastating delayed allergic responses that can contribute to asthma, ADHD or autism. In the meantime, this foreign substance still needs to be excreted from the infant’s body, so the skin is used for excretion rather then the digestive system. Thus the skin becomes the cleanser of the body and shows a rash as the foreign substance comes out.[2]

I am sure that other things can irritate the skin. Environmental factors such as pets, dust mites, pollen can all contribute and make eczema worse, not to mention that there are other unrelated rashes caused by things like poison ivy─my worst nightmare. But I think people often overlook the fact that much of eczema can be caused by the food allergies to dairy, eggs, wheat, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish. No matter how old you are or your child is, it can be a worthwhile experience to try to eliminate on of these foods for a week and see what happens. If nothing seems to change, try eliminating a different food for the next week. You may be pleasantly surprised at what problems you can solve without any medication or cost.

[1] Robyn O’Brien, The Unhealthy Truth, Broadway Books, NY, 2009, p 147-150.

[2] A. Anderson, Flourishing with Food Allergies, Papoose Publishing LLC, CT, 2008, p. 35.

As parents, we face many difficult challenges and I know many parents who feel they could do more for their child which creates a feeling of guilt. This guilt can lead to frustration because so many of us are busy trying to balance caring for our children, with caring for our finances (working), with caring for our homes, with caring for ourselves, as well as maintaining some relationships with family and friends outside of our homes. With the economy in a seemingly constant state of chaos, the financial burden and stress can compound each of these factors. Then if you factor in food allergies or related disorders of ADHD, autism or asthma, the fear, anxiety and frustration can often feel overwhelming to even the strongest parent. The impact of these problems on families when the children attend day care, school, social events or extra curricular activities can be immense.

Many of us try to make New Year’s resolutions. Consider this one if you are dealing with food allergies for your child: Stop feeling guilty. Stop assuming any blame for your child’s allergies. If you fed them the peanut butter cracker or the almond when they were “too young” stop thinking that you made some sort of mistake. There isn’t enough conclusive evidence in the world of food allergies to know for sure what the right thing is to do. Specifically, do you avoid peanuts or dairy while you are pregnant to avoid creating food allergies in your child? Or do you eat those foods with the hope that those foods will desensitize your baby to a possible food allergy?

In addition to not feeling guilty about what has happened in the past, consider an additional New Year’s resolution of accepting what is. I.e. accept the reality of your situation and recognize that it could be worse. Specifically, once you accept the food allergy in your child you can (1) learn all the names and ingredients that are made from that food allergen (e.g. casein is made from milk protein or arachis is made from peanut); then (2) take the next step and clean cupboards of all foods containing any ingredient to which your child is allergic. Toss out garbage foods that contain more than five or ten ingredients including corn syrup. To that point, did you hear that most corn syrup contains mercury─a heavy metal that can lead to various disorders such as ADHD and autism? 

According to Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, “Mercury was found in nearly 50% of tested samples of commercial high fructose corn syrup. Ben Lilliston of The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) reports that in a follow up study they detected mercury in ‘nearly one-third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first or second highest labeled ingredient─including products by Quaker, Hershey’s, Kraft and Smucker. In his report Lilliston claims that the average American consumes about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS and some kids and teens can be consuming up to nearly 80% more than that. Many parents of children suffering from neurological disorders have found that the removal of high fructose corn syrup from their child’s diet has been beneficial. These alarming studies prove that perhaps the reason moves beyond the argument that fructose sugar is bad for your metabolism or that a corn allergy is present in all kids who benefit from removing high fructose corn syrup from their diets. Perhaps the real underlying problem for some is a metal toxicity issue. We all want what is best for our children, and the recent spike in cases of children suffering from multiple allergies, autism, ADHD, and chronic multifocal tic disorders really proves that there is something rotten in our food chain.”[i]

In short, for the New Year, if you are dealing with food allergies, autism, ADHD or asthma stop feeling guilty and start helping your child by clearing out your cupboards of foods that contain the thing he or she is allergic to, as well as high fructose corn syrup. If you think your child who has ADHD, autism or asthmatic doesn’t have food allergies, consider the information in the blog entry titled, Delayed Food Allergies: Autism, ADHD, Asthma.  In that blog entry there are references to resources that explain how and which foods tend to aggravate these disorders making symptoms worse.  Remember, it takes about three weeks to clear out the body of these foods.  In some cases, the food allergies can be mitigated to the point where the disorders are not apparent.  That is truly something to celebrate in the New Year!

[i]Caryn Talty, Editor of Healthy-family.org, “Dangerous Levels of Mercury found in Products Made with High Fructose Corn Syrup,” http://healthy-family.org/caryn/1186/dangerous-levels-of-mercury-found-in-brand-name-products-made-with-high-fructose-corn-syrup, January 2009.

Most of us want to partake in celebrations of Christmas, Hanukah, Easter, Halloween and other family and friend based traditions such as birthdays, graduations and other religious celebrations. From these events, we gather memories that carry us through our day-to-day lives and make us feel part of a bigger picture giving us a sense of belonging and happiness.

As expected, there is a lot of work for the host to prepare a gathering--food preparation often a large part. When food allergies enter the picture, then a level of stress can surround the event for both the parents and the host. If not addressed, this stress can erupt into anger, friction or even family fights. Don’t let the event be ruined for you--there are things you can do so that your family can attend and do so safely. Attending these events is important for the social development of your child, as well as his or her happiness and emotional health, not to mention yours and your spouse's.

Unexpected, offending, allergen-laden foods can be the most difficult to handle. Here is a situation that caused one of the parents interviewed in my book a great deal of frustration. "Karen and her husband often have conflicting views on how to protect her son from an accidental ingestion of peanuts…Another example of contention is during the holiday season while at her mother-in-law’s house one relative brought a plate of peanut butter cookies. Karen asked everyone not to eat them because the crumbs could fall to the floor and Max could ingest them. Rather than agreeing, her mother-in-law said, 'We’ll just put them in the kitchen and eat them in there.' Karen was angry. Peanut could still fall to the floor in the kitchen, plus peanut traces would be on the fingers and lips of anyone who ate them and then might touch or kiss Max. She says, 'I felt unsupported by my husband as well because when I told him what his mother said, he didn’t confront her.'"

I think there are two main things you can do to ease the stress and plan for a relaxed and safer event.  One of the things I have learned to do with my husband is to talk about the upcoming event as soon as I can. For instance, this past Thanksgiving we had plans to travel to my husband’s brother’s house. His wife is quite aware of food allergies as her mother had celiac disease (intolerance to gluten) for a few years before her death. So, it is easy for me to communicate with her about the menu. She advised me what she was planning and I advised her what I think the boys would eat. We also decided what foods I would bring to allow safe and familiar foods for our boys. Together, we planned the meal over email about a week before the big day.  

As soon as some of these details were worked out between my sister-in-law and me, I summarized them to my husband. I also advised him that I told her it was unnecessary for her to make all foods dairy-free, egg-free as she has offered to try to do in the past. Our boys are old enough (five and six) now to know they cannot just take whatever they want. I wanted my husband to be prepared when he saw the variety of foods on Thanksgiving Day. I also discussed the upcoming holiday with our sons and made sure to ask them what they really wanted to make their Thanksgiving Day special. In this case they wanted a homemade apple pie with some vanilla soy ice cream. So I advised my sister-in-law that I would also make and bring those for everyone to share.

Previously, I tried to avoid tension by waiting until that morning or the day before to discuss the event with my husband. This tended to not leave enough time for any concerns that he may have had and so I would find myself feeling annoyed that he had any concerns at all. Over the years, I have found that his concerns are reasonable and actually helpful. But again, to address these concerns in a relaxed way, i.e. to avoid stress and any conflict between us, there must be plenty of time between the initial discussion and the event, specifically at least a week. This leaves enough time to communicate again with the host or make a trip to the grocery store as needed, or even order something safe off of the Internet if I felt too busy to make it myself, like there are some dairy-free cookies I know I can get that are yummy and fun for the boys to open since each is individually wrapped.  They are a little expensive, but sometimes it is worth it to avoid problems.

Another recommendation that I have when discussing upcoming events with either your spouse or your family member is to proactively address the specific concerns that you believe they have and you have. For example, I remember how important it was for me to feel that our boys did not feel different at birthday parties. Despite the fact that they had their own cupcakes, I wanted to give them those with ease, perhaps even laughter and lightheartedness at the party. I remember the tension I could feel emanating from my husband at a particular birthday party when we found that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cheese and crackers were being served. It was important for me that his tension didn’t affect the children’s enjoyment of the party. Since I know my husband’s mannerisms so well perhaps caused me to over react to his feelings--perhaps they were not noticeable to others, I do not know. At any rate, all went fairly smoothly, but I took something away from it.

Specifically I learned that I needed to discuss with him that I didn’t want to feel tension nor did I want the boys to feel tension during the event. So well before the next event, I would say something along the lines of, “I know how concerned you are about the boys coming into contact with allergy foods at parties. I am too. (Trying to show agreement.) But I also feel equally strong that it is important for the boys to not feel our tension at these gatherings.” Then I’d be sure to listen to him. If he had specific concerns that I could address, I would do so, and get back to him as soon as I could.

I think this strategy can work for relatives as well. For instance, I have found that many people in the grandparent generation are so unfamiliar with the relatively new onslaught of serious food allergies in our children, that they often find it unbelievable. Their beliefs then translate into actions, words, tones of voices, facial expressions, etc. that may cause us to feel that they think we are over reacting, are silly or are downright crazy. If possible, a parent might try to say something along these lines to the grandparent host of an upcoming event, “I know that you feel Johnny’s allergy might not be all that bad. But the doctor assures us that we should be very careful. My spouse and I would really appreciate it if you could not serve peanuts (or seafood or tree nuts, etc.) at your home that one day. We are really looking forward to the event. We just want to have a good time and not have to worry about Johnny. Is there anything I can do to help with organizing this?”

For instance, you could specifically offer to contact the host’s guests to request that they not bring foods that contain the allergy-ingredient. This might take the social burden and time burden off of the host. If you can get a list of phone numbers or email addresses, it may only take a short time to write a brief email explaining the allergy and how you’d appreciate it if people could help you in this way. I can’t imagine that anyone would want to knowingly harm a child, so I am sure that most people will be happy to comply. But, not addressing this beforehand and waiting for the guest to arrive with dishes in hand, creates complications and hurt feelings with which no one wants to deal. Imagine Aunt Abby walks in with fifty dollars worth of shrimp cocktail only to find out that it will be put into the backroom. Or imagine Great Uncle Bob who spends hours making his famous peanut butter cookies the day before only to learn little Johnny is severely allergic.

There are many difficult tasks in the job of being a parent. Getting up at two o’clock in the morning for months on end is one of them. Caring and worrying over a child sick with a fever, cough or pneumonia is another. Even speaking up for the sake of your child when it feels uncomfortable and unnatural is a difficult task. Know that you are not alone in the stress that you feel. Then, try to put a smile on your face and proactively talk to your spouse and relatives or friends well in advance (i.e. one or two weeks ahead of time) about the situation to address your concerns, their concerns and solutions. You can even pretend you are “at work” if that’s what it takes to remain nice and calm. It will make the event much better for your child, you, your spouse, the host and the other guests.

I am pleased that the book has received much praise and that there has been a relatively small amount of criticism.  Even so, I’d like to address the criticism.  I believe it falls into two areas. 

It appears that the first main reason is that the discussion of hypotheses, studies and non-traditional forms of medicine outside the officially-already-accepted-and-published set of information was not agreeable to some. A hypothesis is defined as "a proposed explanation for an observable phenomenon."  Here are a few from Flourishing:

• There have been no studies that prove probiotics will help cure food allergies, but there was a study that showed probiotics can help prevent food allergies when taken by infants and pregnant women.
• There have been no studies that prove reducing stress in a child’s life and improving their immune systems may help them outgrow their food allergies, but there is information in the book about how this may help. 
• There are no studies that prove delayed IgG food allergies are linked to ADHD, autism and asthma, but there are a lot of stories from various physicians and parents who have found success in reducing symptoms and behavior related to these problems, even world class athletes will swear by it.

My response to this criticism is that if a person or their organization will only accept the already-accepted-officially-proven studies, then that person or organization may be limiting themselves and the possible ways to help those dealing with food allergies and the probable related disorders of ADHD, autism and asthma.  I can understand that from a liability perspective many professionals are legally obliged not to deviate from the standard. But, I wanted to explore new ideas, theories and studies in my book. I feel it helps people think out-of-the-box, learn, grow and have some hope that in the future there may be cures or treatments for food allergies above and beyond life-long food avoidance.

It appears that the second main reason for criticism of the book is the frustration that many parents felt while trying to figure out “what was wrong” with their child. Why was their child having a cough that would never stop? Why was their child crying all night from eczema that wouldn’t subside? Why was a child being offered intestinal biopsies, brain scans or many medications, when the problem or cause of the problem was food allergy?  Parents who I interviewed were frustrated and even angry at times, about how their child was diagnosed, how they were treated and the misinformation that they were given such as an “adult” epi-pen prescription when an epi-pen junior prescription was in order.

My response to this criticism is that I set out to write a book to help parents feel they were not alone and that they could handle food allergies successfully in their child.  I randomly selected parents to interview and turned no one away who offered an interview. As the interviews were done, I began to notice a trend─most parents were indeed frustrated with the facts that the physician wasn’t able to diagnose the problems as caused by food allergies in a relatively quick way (some took over a year) and during that period of time a lot of medications were prescribed that would often have undesirable side effects. It was not my intention to make doctors “look bad” by any means.  But, I believe that until more research is done and physicians have more official-proven-accepted studies on which to base their beliefs and thus diagnoses, then we have a problem that results in frustrated parents and sick children, not to mention a lot of wasted cost for unnecessary tests and medications that ultimately affect everyone’s health insurance premiums.

For instance, Dr. Fausnight, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Allergy and Immunology, Penn State Children's Hospital wrote, “I have just finished the book. I found it very easy to read and it had a pleasant, warm, friendly approach to a scary problem. The personal stories are helpful because readers can find parts with which they identify. However, I did find parts of it a bit frustrating...I would have liked a story about a family that had an encounter with a compassionate allopathic physician, board certified in allergy and immunology, who helped them understand food allergy, navigate the school system, where to vacation…”  I think she clearly states the goal that all parents with food-allergic children would like.  Although there are many doctors who have these skills, especially those trained in allergy and immunology as is Dr. Fausnight, we need to work together to tip the scales in the direction of having more rather than fewer, especially in the non-specialized more general areas of medicine.

As a community of parents we need to ask the hard questions of our pediatricians to ascertain the correct diagnosis of our children’s symptoms. In doing so, we may need to question them a bit further than we might normally if we don’t understand why our child is having a symptom─sometimes that can take courage. Perhaps we don’t just want a medication to cover up or heal the rash, but rather we want to know the cause of the eczema, cough or asthma for example. In this way, by asking questions, being persistent and getting to the bottom of our children’s issues, together with the physicians we can help the children get better by healing their little immune systems so they can hopefully outgrow their food allergies. In the bigger picture, by raising physician awareness as well as our own, we will hopefully trigger more funding for research on food allergies which will in turn provide more answers, safer testing procedures and perhaps even a cure.

Thank you to everyone who provided feedback. I am most appreciative.

Our first son has taken a lot of antibiotics. At the age of six months he came down with strep, bronchitis and a sinus infection. At age two, he came down with pneumonia. Interspersed and afterward up to age five he continued with about six rounds of antibiotics a year, give or take, for various sinus, ear and bronchial infections. We didn’t know what else to do besides give him the antibiotics--he would develop such terrible coughs we were so worried much of the time. It caused a great deal of stress and concern for my husband and me.

Recently, Dr. David Schultz, a licensed clinical psychologist and lecturer at Yale University's School of Medicine, provided me with an interesting piece that in part addresses the hygiene hypothesis as it relates to antibiotics. The writing taken from “The Vaccination Dilemma” is by Dr. Philip Incao while the book is a compilation by Christine Murphy of various perspectives on childhood vaccinations. Dr. Incao writes, “Research has revealed a list of factors…that correlate with decreased risk of asthma and allergies, including the avoidance of vaccinations and antibiotics [such as] having little or no antibiotics especially before the age of two.” He continues, “If the hygiene hypothesis proves to be correct, it will have a revolutionary impact on the medical practice…There is an ecology of human illness. If we attempt to eliminate a single element of an ecological system, we disturb the balance of the whole in ways that can lead to unforeseen consequences. To these unforeseen consequences belong the dramatic increases in asthma, allergies, diabetes, autism and learning dysfunctions occurring in children today.”[1]

Up to this point, it appeared to me that the hygiene hypothesis focused mainly on the child’s external environment. But directly affecting the world of bacteria within the child’s body makes more sense to me. When that world is disturbed, repeatedly, with little or no effort to reconstitute or repopulate the beneficial bacteria, through the use of probiotics, like acidophilus in yogurt, for instance, then that world can become unbalanced and new problems can emerge.

I recall a passage from Dr. Kenneth Bock’s book, “Healing the New Childhood Epidemics,” which states, “There are two different kinds of helper T-cells: Th-1 and Th-2. The Th-1 cells…attack pathogens directly, or send messages to encourage other immune cells to attack. The Th-2 cells also attack pathogens but in a different way…by encouraging other immune cells to produce antibodies...then attack foreign substances, including bacteria, viruses and also allergens…Because these Th-1 and Th-2 cells work together, it’s important that they stay in balance. But this doesn’t always happen…there is a skewing of this balance, with an increase of Th-2 antibody production and a decrease of the activity of the Th-1 cells…The skewing of immunity to the Th-2 dominance makes it harder for people to fight off the viral, bacterial and fungal infections that lie within their cells. It makes them prone to many common illnesses. The excess activity of the Th-2 cells also triggers and overactive immune response with can result in allergy and autoimmunity…Overactive Th-2 immunity results in too many attacks on the substances that don’t need to be attacked, including pollen and common foods such as milk and wheat. The final result is allergy. Allergy triggers inflammation as the body fights to free itself from presumed invaders. When the inflammation strikes the airways, asthma can occur.”[2]

In other words, the T-cells can become out of balance where one kind is weak and the other is overactive. The weak one can’t fight off illness, like it should, while the overactive one overreacts causing unnecessary inflammation and allergic reactions. This described our son so well: He would get sick, we’d give him antibiotics which would “enable” the T-cell to remain weak rather than rising-to-the-challenge to fight off the illness. By continually giving him the antibiotics his T-cells would remain out of balance and the T-cell responsible for inflammation/allergies would never be reigned-in, put-in-check or calmed down.

Another problem with antibiotics is that leaky-gut can occur when the intestine walls become holey from an overgrowth of bad yeast or candida which can be caused by antibiotics killing off all bacteria (good and bad). When this happens, food particles that normally would be contained in the intestine leak out into the blood stream. The body is called upon to fight or deal with these food proteins. Immune systems come to the rescue but can cause immediate-IgE-food-allergies. Or in other bodies delayed-IgG-food-allergies are created leading to symptoms of the disorders of autism, ADHD or asthma.

Interestingly, our son was started on antibiotics just about the time I tried (unsuccessfully) to introduce cow’s milk formula, to which he developed an allergy. The downward spiral in health continued for the next five years where he often fell into various infections after a regular cold. His ability to fight illness became worse and worse. I remember being in the toy store on the cold winter day of his fifth birthday asking him to pick out a favorite toy. We had just returned from the doctor for the painful-to-listen-to non-stop cough he had developed. All he could choke out was, “Get the castle book” and we quickly went home. I felt so terrible.

Mostly because of what I learned from researching Flourishing and interviewing the parents and doctors, we were finally able to pull out of this cycle. I summoned up the courage to call a recommended naturopath doctor, a kind of medicine with which I had no personal experience and felt somewhat skeptical. This new doctor gave our son supplements to detoxify his body from mucus and reduce respiratory inflammation as well as improve the strength of his immune system. We started this in March. During April his congestion drained like never before. I literally ran around the park one spring day with a box of tissues chasing after him to blow his nose every few minutes--and I was quite happy about it. By May his mucus cleared, a chronic cough finally completely subsided and his breathing at night was tremendously quiet. Previously, I used to be able to “check on him” at the bottom of the stairs--I could hear him breathing and snorkeling from there. It was so stressful to hear this every night for my husband and me. But then, in May, I remember the night when I walked into his doorway and couldn’t hear him. I became worried and took steps closer to his bed and heard him breathing so peacefully. It is still a joy to listen to him at night and remains our favorite recurring topic of conversation between my husband and me.

This new naturopath doctor also explained to me that in addition to clearing mucus and decreasing inflammation using natural supplements and tonics he would work to strengthen our son’s immune system. Having read the passage above from Dr. Bock’s book about T-cells this made sense to me, i.e. reduce inflammation while improving immune response. It is my hope that by rebalancing his immune system his ability to fight illness will be corrected and his overreaction to the allergy-foods will eventually diminish and go away. After five months on the treatment we had a skin prick test. His allergies to dairy and egg remained, but were much less than the previous year. His dairy went from the size of a quarter to a dime. The egg went from the size of a dime to an eraser top. Another benefit that is intangible but immense is that his mood improved, within a few weeks. I don’t need to tell mothers how much easier life is when your child comes up for the bath on the first call rather than turning it into an “issue.”

Over the past eight months under the supervision of both of my son’s doctors (naturopathic and allopathic) he has been on antibiotics only once for strep throat. He has had many colds/viruses and even a mild ear ache and few fevers, but has recovered from them on his own. At first, my husband and I were fearful, then amazed, as we watched him conquer these invisible wars. It is our hope that his body rebalances. If his T-cells balance out perhaps he will outgrow his allergy faster. We will use antibiotics when an infection is serious, but will try quite hard to avoid them up to that point.

In closing, my thoughts about antibiotics are as follows. I believe antibiotics are important in the effort to help the body recover from serious illness. But the over-use of antibiotics can deplete the child’s (or anyone’s) natural and good bacteria supply in their gut and also disrupt the body’s T-cell balance causing problems in naturally fighting illness. While the bacterial supply can be remedied by supplementing with probiotics, there is a longer term negative effect by way of “leaky gut” which probably causes the more permanent food allergies. Further, how do you strengthen the T-cell that has become weak due to over use of antibiotics? Letting it work it out by fighting the illness itself seems to be the only way. It is like tough love--letting your loved one struggle because in the end that’s the best thing for them.

We are now quite careful to use antibiotics only when it is necessary such as for a high fever, strep throat, pneumonia, or other serious life-threatening and/or permanently damaging illness. 

[1] Murphy, Christine, Editor, “The Vaccination Dilemma”, Lantern Books, 2000.

[2] Bock, M.D., Kenneth, Stauth, Cameron, “Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma and Allergies. The Groundbreaking Program for the 4-A Disorders,” Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, New York, NY, 2008.