My Journey to Health... Part 2

This part of my journey seems to be a little foggy maybe because it is a part of our lives I want to forget or disassociate myself with. But there is the aspect of knowing it has changed our family for the better and made us wiser because of it.

In Part 1 of my journey, I explained that over a short span of time, my husband and I began to notice our son acting differently. He became destructive, defiant, extremely irritable and was beginning to be labeled a problem child at school. We were so confused because this behavior was not seen in him before he started school. It was devastating to us and we were at a loss for why this was happening. I wouldn't settle for the excuse told to us by our well-intended pediatrician that he was just a normal little boy with possibly a few allergies.

If you know me, you would understand that I am the type of person that dives head first into anything I am passionate about. I am that girl walking out of the library with a wagon-load of books, the one scouring the internet at all hours of the night and calling people who can offer me more wisdom on their area of expertise. That's exactly what I did for our son.

There was nothing that was going to stop me in my search for healing my son. I was not satisfied to hear he just had some behavioral issues or it is just "his unique personality". That was not acceptable. I knew there was more to this story... our story.

I could go on and on about how God intervened and opened up doors of information for us, but for now I will just say He did and in ways I couldn't believe. Over and over I was shown how behavioral issues in children are usually associated with allergies or exposure to harmful chemicals in their environment. I knew as a baby he had severe colic. Was this related? Was milk a culprit?

I learned that 1 out of 3 children in America currently suffer from some form of allergies and food allergies are skyrocketing and now considered an epidemic. Also scientists are finding they have no idea the effects that genetically altered and processed foods have on our children.

The first thoughts after my studies made me believe there were chemicals he was exposed to at his school. Why were we not seeing this erratic behavior at home? When you receive a phone call every day from a school teacher explaining another incident, the light bulbs start to come on. In the book, Is This Your Child?, the author states that people with severe allergies can be fine in some places and terrible in others... light bulb!

We never researched to find out if there were specific allergens in the school, but there was a voice from within me saying, "get him out". And that's exactly what we did. We persevered through that school year and decided to homeschool thereafter. Even though I was never interested before in homeschooling my children, at this point I couldn't wait.

During that school year, we had him tested for environmental allergens. The results were what we expected, but even more so... he was severely allergic to almost all environmental allergens namely mold, dust, pollen, ragweed, trees, grass, dander, dust mites, and more. And his face told the story. Puffy eyes with huge red circles underneath which is the tell-tale sign in most children. He constantly sneezed and rubbed his nose as well.

Our next step was to totally eliminate all harmful chemicals in our home. I switched to all natural cleaners and replaced most by simply using vinegar. The first two items I pitched were Chlorox and Lysol... both containing carcinogens. Another cleaner eliminated was my dishwasher detergent which contains xenoestrogens which are known to radically disrupt the endocrine (hormone) and immune systems. We also ripped up old carpets and replaced them with hardwood, cleaned up some moldy spots and regularly ventilated our house even in the winter.

Amazingly and almost immediately, we saw positive results in him...

But the results just kept getting better when we changed the way we ate.

To be continued...