A berry peculiar mystery solved

(Apologies for any mention of vomit below. No one ever said chronicling the life of a toddler would be vomit-free. In fact, I think it's to be expected at some point, no? But I will try to keep it to a minimum, for I am pregnant, and lately, loud burps, gagging noises and other nasty bodily functions typically make me want to vom myself.)

Elle has been a relatively healthy kid from the beginning. We haven't had any serious illnesses, no ear infections, no high fevers, major injuries, etc. I think we've only taken her to the doctor once for a non-well baby visit (because I was scared about a bad cough/congestion situation that was dismissed as a standard cold). She never even had a reaction to anything I ate while nursing, for which I was extremely thankful.

The only health abnormality was probably around the last quarter of her first year. We did baby led weaning, and we had been giving her strawberries. It took a few times, but we soon realized that every time she had strawberries (which she loved and devoured), she'd develop a nasty diaper rash. She doesn't get diaper rashes often, but the pattern was definitely there - eat strawberries, raw bum. So we stopped giving her strawberries for a while. About a year later, we tried again ... and no rash. We figured she had grown out of it and resumed strawberry consumption.

The weirdest part about the strawberry allergic reaction was that the one thing that repeatedly made me sick while I was pregnant with her was strawberry cream cheese. I didn't throw up much during that pregnancy, thankfully, but two of the half-dozen times I was actually ill were less than 12 hours after eating the strawberry cream cheese. I was craving it mid-way through my pregnancy, and I had it once and was sick hours later.  A few days later (because I still had the craving AND the strawberry cream cheese), I had it again and felt ill most of the day. That night (I remember it vividly), I was sick several times - my body was done battling to keep it down. I sometimes wonder if that was Elle's earliest allergic to reaction. I also felt extremely ill one night about a month ago after having some toast with strawberry jam and briefly wondered if Baby Bean might be continuing some sort of hereditary aversion. I've since avoided the strawberry jam, and needless to say, I'm pretty much done with strawberry cream cheese for life.

I think it was maybe nine months or so ago when Elle vomited for one of the first times. (What a milestone, huh?) I think she was sick on a Saturday night and then was fine the rest of the day. On Monday, she threw up again. Not a lot, but enough. Each time she was freaked out by the vomit but rebounded right away and was running around, asking for food and water pretty much instantly. It was kind of weird, but good, I suppose. We tried to keep her diet pretty bland and basic for the 24 hours after each incident. This was the first time that I started to make a connection between what she had eaten on Saturday and what she had eaten Monday.

A few months later, it happened once or twice again - a random incident involving throw-up. No other symptoms, no lasting issues, just an upset tummy and some digestive issues that took a day or two to clear up. I couldn't isolate the cause but began to wonder if there was a common thread between all of these random incidents.

Fast forward to the week before Christmas. Berries are entering the "in season" time of year here in Florida, so I've been buying more, as Tim, Elle and I are all big fans. Elle asked for blueberries for lunch on Saturday and ate quite a few. And around 1 a.m. on Saturday night, Elle woke up and vomited more than ever. Since I had the pleasure of not only being vomited on but also having to clean it all up because Tim was still at work, I realized that I could distinctly see undigested blueberries among the rest of the partially digested food o' the day.

About half an hour later, when Tim was home and putting Elle back to bed, I hopped on Google and searched "blueberry allergy." I found out that people who suffer from an allergy to blueberries often are allergic to strawberries, too - both contain salicylates. As my research indicated would happen, Elle had diarrhea (wait, I didn't say I was going to mention diarrhea, did I? Sorry!) the next day as her body continued to process the "toxin", but other than that, she's been fine.

Blueberries can't stop this princess.

 Most of the research I've found show that salicylate allergies are usually mild (and Elle's reactions have followed that pattern), and we've been avoiding giving her raw blueberries. We've seen no reaction to dehydrated or cooked blueberries, although she hasn't had a lot of exposure to either over the last two years. She wasn't sick every time she had blueberries for the first year or so - I don't know how exactly her body evolved from "I can eat strawberries but blueberries are a no-no," but I'm not going to argue with her poor digestive system. We're definitely going to bring it up with the pediatrician the next time we're in, and while I hope she outgrows this allergy like she did the strawberry allergy, in the grand scheme of things, this is a minor issue and easy to handle. I'm thankful for that. And I'm glad the berry odd vomit mystery was relatively easy to figure out.

Any one else have or know someone with an adverse reaction to salicylates? Or have an allergy that they grew out of?