"We were doomed from the start when you look back on it."

I grew up on the Great Lakes in Canada. My father worked at Allied Chemical (located on the water) for 20 odd years. We ate fish that he caught in the Lakes two or three times a week. I remember tumours being common in these fish in the latter days. I do wonder what effect living in this environment and eating the fish has had on the situation I am presently in.

I used to be a hairstylist, but had to give it up due to reactions to colours, perms, allergy to latex gloves and sensitivity to customers' perfumes. I also have hayfever. My husband has asthma and seasonal allergies and his whole family has asthma.

From birth, our daughter never slept more than 40 minutes at a time, day or night, and by the second week she screamed most of the time. Nobody understood why she wouldn't "just fall alseep" in her pram or her crib or the car. She was seen by a quite a few doctors, midwives and early childcare nurses but no one did much except to label it reflux and say it would correct itself. Tresillian (mother and baby program) gave a different answer every time. Nursing Mothers put me on a high salicylate diet and told me to feed her around the clock. Needless to say she was totally out of sorts, crying all the time and inconsolable!

Then an early childcare nurse lent me a copy of Fed Up and sent me to a dietitian. I immediately started on the elimination diet. My baby calmed down in the beginning, but it wasn't a cure all. I was to the point of just eating rice, chicken and egg and trying to keep my milk supply up to breastfeed. When my baby started losing weight we went to RPAH and started on Neocate. It took a few weeks to wean her but once she was feeling better she accepted it.

Once she was settled we tried to slowly introduce foods from about 6 or 7 months. Except for a small amount of potato and chicken she reacted terribly to everything. She would wake all through the night screaming, refuse a nap and scream all day, refuse her formula and food in general. She was irritable, had loose bowels several times a day, and would be very aggressive.

I also try to stay away from all chemicals in the house for cleaning. She has had terrible reactions to paint fumes in the early days when I didn't realize how sensitive she was. We were trying to renovate our house, that's on hold for a long while.

I had never heard of this before. Allergies to nuts and things yes, but food intolerance and everything that goes along with it, no

- Rita, NSW