My challenge--and I seem to have accepted it...

We are eliminating rice from M's diet for a few days to see what happens to his eczema. It has gotten really bad again--especially on his face. It has been hanging around since early Dec and only gets better if we keep him drugged up on Benadryl. But Benadryl has other chemicals in it that are nasty. As well as the fact that it only masks the symptoms and does nothing to actually help the eczema. So, after talking to M about it, we have cut out goat and sheep milk and rice. Rice of course, is the toughest. But it also makes sense. He eats rice at every meal. When you cut out wheat and other gluten grains, corn, potato, reduce soy, as well as his other allergens like nuts, peanuts, dairy, eggs, and sesame, well, it leaves you kinda limited. And rice is cheap. Dirt cheap. My food bill is high enough with all the specialty cooking.
Yesterday was the beginning of our trial. He's been eating applesauce a lot. Hot dogs for lunch. Salsa chicken for dinner. Millet cereal for breakfast yesterday. Oh, and ground pork for a snack. We made the decision to do this night before last, so I haven't taken the time to really plan this out. It's been sorta-go through the house and see what we've got. This morning I'm playing around with rice-free pancakes. So far-so good. M declared them edible.
I really, really hope this does nothing. I know that sounds bad on the surface. But I really, really hope it's not rice causing his problems. I think I'll spend some time today checking out the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (and picking your brain, Caitlin!). I may also make an appt on Monday for him to see the nutritional healer here in town. He's really good and I think he could really help M.
We are also keeping G off the goat milk. I kind of thought the first time I gave him some that he didn't do very well on it. But that was a year ago or so. He started eating it again just recently. He seemed to be doing okay, so I let him. Then I bought this really yummy raw milk cheddar from Whole Foods. The kids loved it and G was totally hooked. After that, he was asking for cheese all the time. Most recently, he sat down at the table with a log of chevre and a spoon. It was cute--but his potty is unbearable. So, out with the goat. It's just too much for his system.
What is S learning from all this? That she needs to keep her kids from overdoing stuff. Something she already knew, but has a hard time putting into practice apparently.