An unscientific experiment concerning nuts

I'll start at the beginning which was a little over six years ago. Allie was a new baby, about 2 months old if I remember correctly. One afternoon I ate a huge (really huge) can of Almond Roca all by myself and then that evening I ate quite a bit of yummy raw cookie dough (and no, I have never lost all that "baby weight" in case you were still wondering). The next day, my lovely nursing baby became not so pretty on the outside. She developed what appeared to be a severe case of baby acne. Our naturopathic doctor (who is also a licensed MD) suggested it may have been due to my large ingestion of nuts and even possibly the raw eggs from the cookie dough. Allie was treated with a steroid cream and eventually cleared up.

Since then, little Allie has had problems with little dry skin patches all over her torso. She also had psoriasis on her scalp. Sometimes it would be really bad for a while. Other times, not as noticable. Well, about a month or so ago I noticed that she hadn't had many problems with it lately. I tried to think of what may have changed. One day, while trying to figure out what to make for lunch I thought about peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, which we hadn't had for quite a while. Oh. Bingo! Peanuts!....

Throughout the Christmas/New Years season I had Allie do without nuts of any kind. Guess what? She's almost totally cleared up! And, there was another benifet, while not at all scientific, I think may be true. Allie's concentration and energy levels during the day are amazingly improved!

The "before" Allie had a hard time listening to a story without becoming very sleepy. During school, she was easily frustrated and would complain of being tired. (Just so you know, Allie is usually in bed by 8:30 and I let her sleep as long as she will, usually until 7 or 8 in the morning. I knew she was getting at least the recommended amount.) The "now" Allie has been happily racing through her schoolwork and never complains about being tired.

I've also noticed a physical difference in addition to the disappearing skin problems. Allie's undereye is no longer so dark. Sometimes she used to look like she had black eyes. All gone now!

So, NO more nuts for Allie.

What is now my next experiment? Well, since today was Allie's lunch out with Poppy, I fed the other kids peanut butter & jelly. I'll be carefully watching to see what happens :-)