THE CAUSE OF IT ALL WE GREW AT HOME IN THE FRIDGE AND ON OUR PLATE EVERY DAY.

We had one child and some would say we had that much less to worry about. Wrong...

That child still had some problem. It started subtly , when he was very young, with chronic constipation. We even ended up in the hospital. I say "ended up" because my son was too young to go through something like that on his own. So we were both embarrassed there. Him as the three-year-old patient and me as the mom.

That was 20 years ago, so it's no wonder we went home without a result. Not a single disease that could accompany such a problem as constipation was confirmed. With constipation and a supply of plum compote, cress tea and other natural nutritional supplements. Gradually headaches, stomach aches, impaired concentration, eczema added to the problems.

Fortunately, none of this was life-threatening. Still, it was not a good feeling when I imagined that with every new problem we would have to go through another and another marathon in crowded waiting rooms. Pediatrician, allergist, dermatologist, gastroenterologist, neurologist, ophthalmologist, psychologist.

I appreciate every doctor who has cared for my son over these long 12 years, yet the perpetrator remained unknown for a long time. The entire treatment was based on partial symptom suppression.

The cause of it all was grown at home in our fridge and on our plate every day. And we had no idea. It didn't even occur to us that all those manifestations might have a common denominator. Food intolerance. When my son was 12 years old, information came to me by chance that there was something called food intolerance testing.

Into.... What? Intolerances? Nonsense. However, I recently addressed eczema with an allergist and my son has no allergies. They did test him after all. Besides, it seemed too expensive. Intolerance is such a first stage of allergy. That's a weaker allergy, isn't it? Paying so much money for something like that? If a specialist doctor didn't help him, how could any more testing help him?

But it was drilling in my head. Those 12 years of going to doctors had already cost me so much time, money and energy ( we even tried healers). I was effectively desperate. I finally decided to buy the test. It was just one prick of the finger, a few drops of blood and we could await the result. And it took me by surprise, to say the least. The main culprits in everything were milk, egg, gluten, and to a lesser extent, tomato and potato. Of course I immediately took all this off his menu.

FIRST DISAPPEARED FROM THE FACE ECZEMA.

I didn't have to go to school anymore to ask to sit him further away from the blackboard because I thought maybe the chalk dust was hurting him. The eczema disappeared almost immediately. If a doctor who is a staunch opponent of intolerance testing is reading this right now, I'm sure he's grabbing his head.

How can I write immediately?
What is instant? What are the expressions?

That does not correspond to professional terminology! Well, it does. Compared to those 12 years of misery, a few days - I mean 1-2 weeks, was instantaneous for me.

The migraines faded right away. And I used to have them maybe every week back then... Abdominal pains too. The concentration disorder eased up and it lasted longer. I was thrilled. Certainly more so than when I walked out of the doctor's office with a prescription for corticosteroids in my hand.

WHY HASN'T SOMETHING LIKE THIS COME MY WAY BEFORE?

On the other hand, I was glad that I came across the tests. It changed my life. It changed our lives.

I'm not saying that food intolerance is the universal cause of all ailments, but I now know that it is much more common than true allergies. It might be different for someone, but for my son it was just as I write.