Blended Diet, finding a balance

Faith has been on a blended diet for 3 months, I thought it was longer. 3 months of less vomiting and less washing. Wow, we have seen quite a transformation! We still have a few vomits a week but Faith's hair is getting thicker, skin colour more bright, less sweating, no coat on her tongue. If we add something that doesn't agree with Faith the vomiting comes back and we make a hastily retreat back to what works. We take everything slowly as that works best.

We have tried a few meats but each time we do we find Faith can't seem to tolerate them, she just ends up with lots more vomiting. Our nutritionist thought it might be a good idea to add some amino acids to Faith's blend and we have now tried it and each time we do Faith's vomiting increased. We tried 3 days here and then a break and then another 3 days and each time she vomits up her blend. Then we stop the amino acids and the vomiting stops. So I don't know why that happens. We have added a little bit of zinc and she is coping fine with that. Then the next step is to add an iron supplement without making Faith feel unwell or constipated.

When we last added Faith's blend ingredients into the computer program, Foodworks, the amount each day that we gave Faith was 70% of her required calorie intake which is great because she still has 3 formula feeds so we are overall exceeding Faith's calorie needs. Her weight is still the same no decrease, no increase, but we have struggled with one UTI and some vomiting from the amino acids. I just want her to gain a bit more weight but I know she will get there, I just have to be patient. We decided to increase the amount of blend she has during the day so hopefully that will help also. We increased the flax seed oil slightly and will slowly start making a few other changes to increase weight. We don't just want to add butters and oils we want to give Faith a balanced diet as when she eats she won't eat all that oil and butter.

The nutritionist thought it might help if we did a blood test on Faith to check different levels of nutrients and when we saw the local pediatrician he thought it was a good idea. The problem is that Faith is soooo hard to get blood out of so we need a doctor to do it and the only way is to admit her to hospital and then take the blood and then we can go. So silly, it is all to do with funding of the local hospital and it doesn't seem to get much from the government. I really dislike going there as there haven't been any positive experiences, generally negative ones (we usually drive across the border to the children's hospital where the specialist's are) and the hospital is full of latex products and with Faith needing to have no contact with latex it is a constant battle with the staff. I know it will be fine, just causes a little apprehension. It will be good to see what the blood tests show and then we can make changes to her diet to help her along.