1.  Commercial Formula - Most often, this is the first step in taking care of yourself or your loved one.  Unfortunately, it’s also the one that can usually makes things WAY worse.  If you’ve had this experience, you know how traumatizing it is to eat and suddenly feel nauseous or see your loved one immediately become violently ill - gagging, vomiting or eventually having diarrhea or being constipated after eating formula.  The truth is: if you look at the top two ingredients in most commercial formulas, it’s Water and Corn Syrup… so they have us eating or feeding our loved ones pure sugar, and we and our loved ones just can’t handle it!!  They rarely, if ever, improve on this stuff and it’s typically NOT going to be the thing that helps stop failure to thrive.

2.  Counting Calories - Right after commercial formula, one of the first things you were probably told to do is count calories for yourself or your loved one.  You probably even had an appointment with a dietician who taught you how to do this.  At the time, it makes sense… we need to make sure we or our loved ones are not going to waste away.  But the truth is: all calories are not created equal; some are inflammatory and others are not.  Some calories can make us violently ill, and some won’t.  I’m sure you’ve seen this first hand and know how gut-wrenching it can be as a parent.  It’s NOT about the calories! It’s about so much more…

3.  Blending What Everyone Else is  Eating… For Yourself or Them - This one is the most heartbreaking for me.  We don’t get a break just because we or our loved one can’t eat normally.  We still must make money, take care of a home and keep ourselves healthy.  So in an effort to balance these needs we just blend up our healthy diet and eat it or give it to our loved one.  I completely understand.  The problem is, neither a typical kid’s diet nor our typical healthy adult diet are usually right for tube fed people, because you or your loved one has likely already developed food sensitivities and digestive distress that makes it difficult to tolerate the complex foods that we eat on a daily basis.

4.  Going to appointment to appointment expecting a miracle - If you are anything like me, I was going from appointment to appointment hoping that someone would give me the answers I needed to make my child well.  In the back of my mind I was really hoping for a miracle because my daughter was getting sicker.  The reality is that while these doctors and dieticians mean well, they have been trained to think the same way .  And that same way is currently failing for you or your loved one.  So expecting the next person to save the day is just highly unlikely.  You need new ideas, new techniques, and new insights to really allow them to thrive.

1.   Eliminate Common Known Problem Foods - I want to help you right NOW stop the gagging, vomiting, gas, diarrhea, constipation, and other heart-wrenching symptoms you or your loved one is experiencing.  The first step that usually begins to really help most suffering from digestive distress is to eliminate common known problem foods.  The reason why is typically the digestive tract is very irritated and eating hard to digest foods will only make it worse. The most common allergens or sensitivities are:  wheat and other grains, cow’s milk products, corn, soy, eggs, shellfish, and peanuts along with any other allergens you already know your loved one may have.  This is the best first step to helping reduce your or your loved one's digestive upset (it’s not typically a cure-all but you won’t believe the results just doing this can produce).  Eventually you may be able to add some of these foods back as you determine whether they are troublesome for your loved one.

2.   Blend and Strain the Food Correctly Before Putting It Through a feeding tube - The key to making a successful liquid meal for your loved one is getting a high quality blender (yes Blendtec® or Vitamix® usually work best but other blenders will work if you follow this step), blending it for at least 5 minutes until the mixture turns warm, and then straining it in a conical strainer using a wooden pestle and stand.  This method removes the CRUD that if it went through the g-tube would cause a blockage.  Straining it this way only needs it to be done once and can be done quickly, saving you time and much aggravation.

3.   Create a Custom Blenderized Diet That Works for Them - While eliminating common known food allergens is great -- it’s only just the beginning.  People I’ve seen respond the fastest and easiest all had a custom diet designed specifically for them.  You’ve heard that every snowflake is unique?  We are the same!  With so much trauma and damage to the digestive process, you or your loved one has already developed multiple food sensitivities, allergies, and likely intestinal permeability. The most important thing you can do is work through the process of creating a custom blenderized diet that will STOP the violent symptoms.  It’s amazing what happens when you take this step… the normal reactions fade away… suddenly there’s no more gagging and vomiting right after feeding.  No more diarrhea.  No more painful gas.  No more constipation!  It truly is one of the keys to helping go from failing to thrive to well nourished and alive.

My daughter was born with DiGeorge Syndrome and multiple health issues and spent her first 16 months in hospital.  In order to help her, she was given a tracheostomy and a g-tube and was fed a commercial formula; she gagged, refluxed, vomited, and had diarrhea after every meal for more than 2 years.  She was alive, starving and failing to thrive.   I decided to see what happened if I stopped giving her the sugar-ladened commercial formula and started blending the most nutrient dense food I could find and give it to her through her g-tube.  Literally there was a difference overnight!  I’M NOT JOKING! The gagging, retching, vomiting, and diarrhea stopped immediately!  I knew what I had just done was important!  No more cleaning up both her and the kitchen after she ate!  She was able to enjoy meal time and so was I!  

As both a Mom to a special needs child and a Holistic Nutritionist who also has had plenty of eating issues, I understand the frustration of digestive distress, seeing your loved one suffer, and the importance of nourishing the body properly so it can get better.  I want to help you create a custom diet for you or your loved one by looking past the symptoms and discovering some of the root cause problems that are making you or her sick. Are there parasites, candida, detox problems?  All these things need to be understood before you or she can recover from inflammation, leaky gut, and gut dysbiosis.

Through questionnaires, blood test results, and a clinical history we will work together to restore your or your loved one's health through nourishing foods and supplements.  

During our 30-minute call we will briefly discuss your or your loved one’s medical history, current diet, and symptoms and I will give you a couple of tips for what you can do immediately to help troubleshoot your or your loved one's digestion and health.

Here’s how to book it - Click the link below to schedule a time with me this week to answer any of your questions, to start mapping out how to re-balance your or your loved one's body, or to customize a blenderized diet.

From my heart to yours,

My daughter, Clara, was born prematurely in June 2002 with DiGeorge Syndrome and a host of health issues ranging from a chronic heart condition, bronchial and tracheal malacia, extra digits on both hands, a small thymus, weakened immune system, and choanal atresia - all which kept her in hospital for 16 months.  She came home with a tracheostomy, a g-tube, and on oxygen and a ventilator.  The medical treatment she received kept her alive but did not help her to thrive, which became very clear when, just before the age of 2, Clara started showing signs of autism.  Knowing something about nutrition and determined to keep her out of hospital, I began blending real food to see whether it would make a difference to Clara’s health.  With glimpses of hope that I was onto something (eg. Clara was suddenly awake 12 hours a day rather than her typical 6), it still took more than two years of trying various foods and diets (eg. GFCF, low oxalate diet, Specific Carbohydrate Diet) before I found the right combination of foods that worked for her and all signs of digestive distress vanished.  

Through a homemade nutritious blenderized diet, supplements, and hours of therapy, Clara has thrived.  She is now 14 and attends school full time.  She still has a g-tube.

It has become my passion and my mission to reach out to other caregivers like me, or anyone who wants to reduce the confusion about nutrition, to help themselves and their loved ones thrive through finding the right foods for them, and finding peace of mind.

When I tried to help my daughter thrive it took me years of trial and error.  Let me take away the confusion and frustration for you and guide you to finding the right foods for you or your loved one!