Jayden Clark, Age 6, The Boy Who Can Only Eat 9 Food Items

Jayden Clarke is from Wootton on the Isle of Wight and has spent most of his life in hospital.  He suffers with many ailments, including analyphalactic asthma and rhinitis, both symptoms of a rare allergic condition - causing him to have allergies to most foods and beverages.

In fact, his entire diet consists of only 9 items.  If he eats anything else, Jayden is plagued with severe breathing problems, rhinitis, swollen stomach, constipation, bleeding bowel and dry skin - the latter being much more severe than the dry skin we treat with beauty creams and the like.  This condition actually cracks Jayden's skin and causes it to bleed.

Somehow, the lovely blond boy is surviving on: cereal, chicken, ham, pears, apples, bananas, carrots, potatoes and rice.

Years of testing which have included a series of biopsies, has determined the cause of the symptoms, with a final diagnosis of the rare condition; Eosinophillic Gastrointestinal Disease (EGID), which only affects 700 people in the UK.

As if only being able to eat 9 foods isn't bad enough, his doctors restricted him to a special baby milk, Neocate, for a period of 21 days last year.

As a baby, Jayden was very agitated and kept getting all kinds of illnesses made worse by the fact that (at the time), they had no idea the condition was caused by food allergies - and not just the normal ones, such as peanuts and eggs.  He was prevented from having normal baby milk and probably used a substitute such as soy milk.

I say 'probably', because my eldest son suffered from asthma as a 2 year old and I spent endless nights in the bathroom, with the shower running only on hot and the sink faucet turned up full.  I would sit with him on my lap,  rubbing his back to try and soothe him.  Gratefully, the steam would enter his lungs and he'd be able to breathe again.  He also slept with a humidifier in his bedroom.

His asthma was caused by 9 different foods, including an allergy to cow's milk.  Once we cut those foods out and substituted cow's milk for soy milk - no more asthma!  I even home made his icecream et al and had to buy all milk free products, including bread made with soy.  But it was all worth it to see him breathing easily again.

Jayden’s health is even worse, life-threatening in fact, and has put a huge strain on his parents, Rob, 49, and Nicky, 43.  So much so, that both gave up their careers in the police force and the NHS to care for him, as he spends only a little time at school.

Resources:

Apfed
American Partnership for Eosinophilic Disorders

Children's Hospital Colarado
Gastrointestinal Eosinophil Diseases Program

The Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia
Center for Pediatric Eosinophilic Disorder

References:

County Press Online
Isle of Wight 
We're here for other sufferers
by Matt White

Radio FM - World News
The boy who can only eat NINE foods: Six-year-old has rare life-threatening allergy/
by admin

MedicineNet.com
Definition of Allergic Rhinitis

Daily Mail
The boy who can only eat NINE foods: Six-year-old has rare life-threatening allergy
By Daily Mail Reporter

Daily Mail Reporter

FrederickNewsPost.com
Local Brief
From Staff Reports