How Dairy Affected My Son’s Immune System

If you’ve been around for a while, you’ll know for the past year I’ve been dealing with Andrew’s horrendous reactions to mosquito bites. It’s been miserable having to see Andrew go through how his body reacts to getting a mosquito bite. It’s not fun for anyone. I found out that by treating the mosquito bites with lavender essential oil within the first 5-10 minutes of contact, his bites don’t swell like they normally do. It was a HUGE relief for us because I knew it would help the swelling and blistering — and possibly eliminate the blistering and swelling altogether if I caught it quick enough.

However, that was just treatment; I needed to find out what the root cause of the problem was. I decided to take him to a holistic practitioner instead of an allergist because let’s face it — there was a reason his body was reacting that way and I needed to find out why. By going to an allergist, most likely they’d give Andrew medication and tell me he was allergic to mosquito bites. Again, just treatment.

When we left the holistic practitioner’s office a few weeks ago, I was armed with a whole list of foods to keep Andrew away from and began to feel overwhelmed with how much we’d have to change his diet. We slowly eased into the transition and I decided to change and focus on the bulk of what he normally consumes — dairy. Andrew only drinks raw milk so I thought the raw milk wouldn’t be a problem but turns out, his body really reacted to it. I switched the raw cow milk for raw goat milk and purchased goat milk products when I could. Although he doesn’t eat a lot of sugar, I cut most forms of sugar (except maple syrup and coconut sugar) and I cut out most forms of wheat (except einkorn). By cutting the foods out that stressed his immune system, we were hoping to build him back up so his body could fight bug bites better. That was the plan and I had full faith in it… I just didn’t know how long it was going to take. But I was willing to do it as long as I needed to so he could live a vibrant life.

A week or so ago Andrew and I were out running errands and when we got in the car, he started itching his leg and said he had a bite on it. I didn’t have any lavender with me so I safely hurried our way back home so I could apply the lavender to his bite. It was a good 15 minutes before we pulled into our driveway and when I unbuckled his car seat straps and looked at his leg I was in completely astonishment. Andrew’s mosquito bite was… normal looking. If this situation were to happen two months ago, his bite would have swelled to a half dollar size and would have started blistering within 4-6 hours.

I. could. not. believe. it.

I still applied lavender EO to his bite for safety precautions and by the next day, it was the size of a pinhead. NO JOKE!!! This was completely unheard of and I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the reason he did not react like normal was because we took him off dairy. I couldn’t believe how something as simple as dairy affected his immune system!

Two or so days after the first bug bite, he received another one. Same thing happened; no swelling, no blistering, no pain, no redness, nothing. The previous day, the bite was barely noticeable. I seriously was amazed that just two months ago Andrew’s body would have reacted dangerously to a mosquito bite and now, he hardly has any reaction!

I’m not saying every bug bite he has will not react how it normally but to see the change has been amazing! It gives me hope that the diet we have him on will help him and help his reactions simmer down a bit.

It just goes to show you the true power of how food affects your body. What you eat can either heal you or break your system down and I truly think everyone should first look to the diet to heal before looking to prescription drugs.