Dear everyone,

Thanks so much for the detailed information about your NIH experience
Sherri! It was so helpful to hear what it is like. I did not know that
they prepared a food try for the children, that is so nice. Michelle,
Sherri and everyone, thanks for all the insight and funny comments
people have said to you and your children!

We have heard most of the same comments, Michelle, except the airplane
one. Did it mess up your plane travel? Since we are in California, I
have also got a lot of unusual, free and unsolicited comments, such as:

1. You really need to take your child to a homeopathic
chiropractor,(usually followed by a testimonial, followed with the
name of their "miracle worker")
2. You really should be using organic foods.
3. Are you feeding him meat, because maybe it is the meat hormones.
4. The opposite of #3 from our relatives and non-vegan or vegetarian
friends is, You should be feeding him more red meat! (we do not make
red meat a staple in our diet, but Seth loves hamburgers and meat!)
5. Are you giving him enough vitamins, or the right kinds?
6. Does he get enough sun and fresh air? (what kind of parent do they
think I am?)
7. If you went away from your place for a few weeks, maybe it will go
away. (Relatives suggestion that maybe living near them would be the
cure).
8. Maybe he has an overload of yeast in his system (we checked this).
9. A myriad of comments suggesting that it could be our older carpet,
dust mites (taken care of both of these), the possibility of toxic
building or toxic mold (looked into this)or anything else suggesting
that if we lived in the commentators town, or neighborhood, this would
not have happened or would go away.
10. No one in our family has ever had these problems (both sides of
the family have said this at times).
11. Is he normal?
12. Is he going to die from that? (A family member!)
13. I don't know what I would do if my child had something like that!
(This is a very scary comment to me).
14. Are you going to have any more kids?


People do avoid us at the pool where the kids take a swimming class,
and luckily the instructor has abrother who has multiple allergies and
skin conditions, so she wards off the concerns.

It has been so good to get these off my mind, because they all make you
feel that you are not doing enough or being neglectful. People do not
realize that we all have probably tested for everything under the sun,
trying to find an answer, and that is how we now have a diagnosis.

We are looking forward to our trip to NIH, even if it will be busy, and
a little draining on our child. I think that my husband and our older
son, Ethan, will get in some sightseeing, but it sounds like Seth and I
will not see much of DC. The play rooms sound great at the INN!

Thanks again to everyone, and it has been so nice to share feelings and
experiences with other who understand!

Karen Durrant