This is Emillia's story as seen through our eyes...... Emillia was diagnosed with FPIES right before christmas of 2009 she was almost 10 months old. We have had our challenges, our ups and downs, numerous tears, and even some laughs through our experiences.
We have met some amazing people during these trialing times and we are very thankful for them and all that they have done for us!
Emillia is a very sweet vibrant little girl as you will learn reading through this blog. She is a trooper and always seems to have a smile on her face through even some of the hardest times.
Emillia has taught us many lessons in life already and i know she will continue to do so, she is our princess!

Emillia:
God grant us
the serenity to accept
the things we cannot change..........

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

PICA

http://www.healthyplace.com/eating-disorders/main/eating-disorders-pica/menu-id-58/
Pica is an eating disorder typically defined as the persistent eating of nonnutritive substances for a period of at least 1 month at an age in which this behavior is developmentally inappropriate (eg, >18-24 mo). The definition occasionally is broadened to include the mouthing of nonnutritive substances. Individuals presenting with pica have been reported to mouth and/or ingest a wide variety of nonfood substances, including, but not limited to, clay, dirt, sand, stones, pebbles, hair, feces, lead, laundry starch, vinyl gloves, plastic, pencil erasers, ice, fingernails, paper, paint chips, coal, chalk, wood, plaster, light bulbs, needles, string, and burnt matches.

 When emmy was probably no more than 3-4 months old we noticed she had started chewing on her crib rails, not a big deal right she's just teething? As time went on we noticed she was doing more than just chewing on it, she was EATING it, literally, eating it. This freaked us out, WHY in the world wold she EAT the wood on her crib?! We asked doctor after doctor and none of them seemed concerned with it........ we didnt pay much attention to it after that, then as she got older we noticed she would eat dirt, rocks, plastic, ice, paper, chalk and some of the other nonnutritive substances. 
  I had no idea what PICA was until i saw one of the other FPIES mothers writting about it on here, i researched it again and found the informative website above. After reading and looking some more i found out that most of the non-food items emmy eats show her iron level is low......... however, her iron when checked is always amazing.... doesn't seem to make any sense yet we are used to that (nothing making sense) We have a child with FPIES, the more we learn the more confusing it seems to get....

2 comments:

  1. Exactly, the more we learn the more confusing it gets.
    Sam has chewed through the wood on his bed too...it is crazy. He is our 4th so I can say his chewing obsessions are outside of "norm". We have this same pic of him eating dirt as he used to happily chow down on it - the odd thing is he would vomit a few hours after eating dirt or sand from our yard (but not from the park or another persons yard)- we have a walnut tree and suspect there are trace tree nut proteins in our dirt....bizarre beyond bizarre.
    Sam's wood obsession had improved greatly right after his transfusion so I do think his is related to his iron. But actually it doesn't have to be just iron- that is just the common culprit, it could be nutrition in general...not that it is bad- just "off", you know? It is bizarre...

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  2. Just like the commercial for that cereal where the little boy suggests giving it to "Mikey" because he'll eat anything, there are some canine companions that WILL eat just about anything, whether it is food, treats, or something that they find in the yard. In fact, this problem can sometimes cause an otherwise normal dog to ingest items in the house that are absolutely not suited for anyone, either two or four legged animals to eat. http://www.health-tourism.com/angioplasty-surgery/germany/

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