FPIES Awareness from a Mom and Holistic Healthcare Provider

Have you ever heard of FPIES before? It's short for Food Protein-Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome and it's a rare and complicated form of food allergy!

This is our 5th year bringing awareness and understanding to complicated Food Allergy conditions such as FPIES.

In the early years, this day was full of grief and confusion for me as I tried to comprehend why we were on this journey with all the challenges it included.

If your child was diagnosed, my heart goes out to you. I understand the challenge of finding helpful information, medical providers, and support for your family 💕

And I want to encourage you, that there is help available and you can see a dramatic improvement in your little ones and your quality of life!

Because this condition doesn’t exist in a bubble. It affects the family’s sleep, daily levels of stress, hours of researching, pain and suffering during reactions, recovery time, anxiety-producing caution around any and all food, and relationship stress with partners, friends, and family, it can prevent parents from the ability to return to work, the child’s ability to go to school and the family’s mental and emotional health as a whole.

I get it.

And I want you to know that with holistic support, our experience over the past 3 years, and especially this year, has transformed from feeling anxious, stressed, and overwhelming to feeling an ever-increasing abundance of hope, love, and excitement for the future!

Having successfully managed K’s condition, seeing so much healing take place, and helping dozens of other families do the same has brought peace and empowerment to our journey.

If you are a parent looking for help, send me a DM here: m.me/DrBeataH and we can explore how a Holistic Healing approach will be beneficial for you and your family.

To celebrate our progress and journey I will be sharing more #foodallergyawareness over the next few weeks and want to share the 1st public post I wrote 4 years ago when our shift was slowly starting:

#FPIESawareness

You pray and pray for your kids to be healthy, and luckily for me, my baby is, except for this tricky thing called FPIES. K’s rare food allergy doesn’t just mean she has to avoid her triggers. It means going forward, anything can be a potential trigger. It means still nursing long after I expected with the constant fear of losing my supply of hypoallergenic milk. It means only having a handful of safe foods, and an endless amount of unknowns. It means being scared of crumbs and using a whole package of baby wipes on the high chair at a family gathering/restaurant. It means hours at night, researching the best way to trial food, and how to respond during a reaction. It means being frustrated towards food, the thing we need to stay alive. It means constantly analyzing every sleepless night, every diaper, every rash to see if she's having a reaction. But mostly it means pushing forward despite all the fear. K's chronic reactions last weeks and rival any "colic" a baby has as a newborn. Seeing her in pain for so many months before we figured out her triggers broke me. There is a big chance I will have to witness her go through that nightmare all over again, but the only way out is through. When she isn't having a reaction she is a playful, smiling, strong-willed but sensitive girl and we want to keep it that way. Today is FPIES awareness day. FPIES was something I’d never heard of 18 months ago but now occupies more space in my brain than I’d care to admit. If you see me feverishly wiping down a table, sneaking away to nurse Klaudynka AGAIN, asking you to wash your hands/mouth before touching or kissing her or to not give her a bite of what you’re eating, I know it seems over the top, but I’m just doing what all moms do for their kids: keep them safe as best we can.

Wishing you and your little ones all the best 💕

Dr. Beata Harasim PT, DPT, FAAOMPT

Holistic & Integrative Doctor of Physical Therapy