Eosinophilic Esophagitis - Editor's Choice

I should mention that my husband is a physician who clearly does not believe in alternate medicine, but EE is an inflammatory disease and ginger and turmeric are anti inflammatory!

My son who is 12, was diagnosed with Eoseonophilic gastroenteritis via endoscopy in 2010, which eventually also manifested into esophagitis as well. It began after he was placed on a heavy round of antibiotics last February for an upper respiratory. My guess from what I have learned through research is this: the antibiotics caused an overgrowth of candida, which perforated the intestine walls, and caused small holes through which food and environmental allergens were passing through.

I believe many children diagnosed with EE or EG, probably all have some sort of fungal issue from past antibiotic use or processed foods-you can check this through a spit ph test or simply look at the tongue for a white coating. By March, he had lost 15 pounds, was anemic, vomited everyday, was only able to eat approximately 5 or 6 different types of food, had a constant body pain, and slept for hours throughout the day, his body had become extremely toxic and seemed to be shutting down-this disease was taking over our lives. He missed all of the Spring school semester, so we eventually withdrew him and began home schooling while searching for a doctor with a cure. We spent countless hours and thousands of dollars on different specialists, doctors, naturopaths, and even an acupuncturist to try and understand how to function day to day. I never was told specifically what caused the sudden eosoniphil increase, but I wanted to give you some insight as to what I discovered worked (and what did not work) for us and how my son has improved over the course of a year. (We too were quickly reaching the point of feeding tube and I was desperate to help him get his life back).

Because his food and environmental allergies grew increasingly worse every single day, we guessed each day as to what foods he could and could not eat. The things the others are saying is true, your child probably has leaky gut syndrome-there are many causes besides just antibiotics-the most prevalent being processed/fast food and high sugary foods. I changed my sons diet to whole organic foods-primarily leafy greens which helped tremendously regulate his digestive system-and in moderate amounts allowed *some* dairy because he is a child and this was very difficult to balance to keep him from being stressed. I completely eliminated bread for several weeks and then when I reintroduced it, I used all gluten free products or made the bread at home, being cautious about the ingredients I used. I also added in 1 cup of Kefir a day-this completely eliminated the constipation issue associated with EG. I then began researching drastically on rebuilding the immune system. He started taking the following supplements: Colostrum (3 per day), Vit. D3, Flax seed oil (2 tbls. Mixed with a 1/2 cup of organic cottage cheese), Zinc, potassium, Selenium, Probiotics (over 10 billion per pill) and a whole food liquid. I gave him digestive enzymes during meals.

Over the course of the year, he very very slowly began improving-very slowly. We continued on this routine faithfully over the course of the year - then in about December began experiencing problems again. We visited with an allergist this time to specifically identify his food allergens-in December, skin testing revealed he was allergic to approximately 64 different food and environmental allergies, while a food allergy test from a Naturopath identified his primary food allergies were milk and eggs. We finally decided on a steroid anti inflammatory in January. He received a prednisone injection which significantly helped, and began taking Singular (but not without either causing side effects), as well as began sublingual immunotherapy aka SLIT. The injection in January helped significantly, however if you read up on the side effects of steroids, they are pretty horrific, however I did find a clinical study from the Mayo clinic showing there was an 86% cure rate from a steroid injection for people with EE and EG. We continued on with the Singular which appeared to be hiding symptoms, but not curing-at this point the disease prevented him from swallowing in the morning. The allergist informed me to give him a salty drink or to have him eat a salty food first thing in the morning and it will reduce the swelling-a nifty little trick that works well. The allergist also surprisingly prescribed Vit. D3, fish oil, probiotics, and pomegranate fruit juice along with his SLIT therapy (the same old vitamin supplementation we had already been doing over the past year)-he said if you keep going, you will see a 90% recovery by the end of the year.

I then found earth clinic by just looking for information on how to help him as it seemed we were not doing enough and was not happy that we were back to Rx's again. I discovered the apple cidar vinegar cure and began drinking it myself first. I then incorporated it into my son's diet for two weeks and all of a sudden his allergies and asthma were diminshing. I would not say he is 100% cured, but it is getting better and better each day. I believe it is working because it is killing off the underlying root of the problem-the candida. We continue to take the supplements mentioned above, especially the colostrum and kefir as they both rebuild the intestinal lining and drink the ACV everyday and he is continuing on his immunotherapy drops. For him, I use 1 tsp. of ACV in 12 oz. of spring water with a small amount of honey. We also oil pull with Extra Virgin Coconut Oil in the mornings and have seen improvement from that as well (he has had a skin rash appearing-a common detox reaction as the candida leaves the body-I just rub coconut oil on the skin where the rash shows up until it goes away). Since the oil pulling and ACV, he has no longer had to take any prescriptions-this is the first time all year, and is actually eating what is considered "normal" food again-the bad stuff, but is not having any adverse effects and has even ate a few nuts the past few days without any problems (I normally carry an epi pen for just in case situations). Because of the supplements, probitiotics, and whole food vitamins, he has not been sick in over a year-not even a low fever or sore throat. I believe his immune system is on its way to being rebuilt.

I believe we are finally on our way-it was a very very long road, there were many days of frustration, but I wanted to encourage you to not give up and keep searching-you are on the right track. I also purchased two books that helped me understand the whole body tremendously- one is written by a very popular nutrionist, Doug Kaufman, called the *Fungus Link* which deals with systemic candida and inflammation and the second one is by Gary Huffngale, Ph. D. Entitled *Probiotics Revolution*. Both will help tremendously. I believe what worked for us was a combination of many things-diet change to all organic, heavy vit. , mineral, and probiotic supplements, the immunotherapy along with traditional medicine under an allergy specialist.

I hope this helps and my heart reaches out to you, this is a terrible terrible disease, but I can assure you if we can bounce back from where we were last year-everyone can. Use every resource you have to throw at it, attack the symptoms with scripts until you can find the root cause, then start identifying the nutritional deficiencies, along with any pathogenic organisms that may be lingering around.