I have had nearly 3 years of hell with our young one. She had allergies to something that no one could diagnose.
Symptoms. Waking up at night not long after being put to bed screaming her head off and scratching madly.. Night after night after night after night of it and taking hours to settle down. And dermatitis.

Only thing that seemed to help was cooling her down.. So I would go get her and put her in my arms and walk around the house with the air con on, doing my best to soothe her and get her to go back to sleep.. Night after night of being so tired and so day after day of being an absolute train wreck.. So tired I just couldn’t think.. Not to mention the sheer hell my young one went through.

My diet turned to crap due to not really caring about what I was eating I was so tired. My doctors orders were to lose weight as I was already over weight before this started.. Doc said I was in line for diabetes and a heart attack.. Well here I am 3 years on and despite pushing myself to get to the gym, I’m at the heaviest in my life. Lack of sleep really screws with your whole life.
The wife was the bread winner so she needed her sleep so couldn’t help.. I had no family around to help. It was a nightmare.

I can remember being so tired, so angry and so frustrated one night that I was beyond breaking point.. I just had night after night of this and there was no one to help.. No one I could turn to and say here, take the baby off my hands for half an hour.. Or even let me get 10 mins sleep…
I had no one to turn to.. I was beyond exhausted.. I can remember thinking if I didn’t have my young one cradled in my arms I would have picked up our new 50inch LCD TV and thrown in through the ranch slider..
I can remember thinking if I did that, things would come to a head. Perhaps the police would come and somehow give me help.

Only thing that stopped me was I was cradling my young one who was screaming her head off…
But not only has my health suffered but so has my daughters.

My daughter has since been diagnosed with Autism on the lower end of the spectrum, but I cant help but wonder if it’s all solely down to lack of sleep over the last few years due to her food allergies that has her so far behind all the other children her age. Or if it is true Autism, how much has this whole situation gone to causing it?
My daughter was flying ahead in leaps and bounds and learning fast at an early age until she hit a brick wall with these allergies.

Its been very hard for a few years and things only got better when we worked out what was causing my daughters symptoms.. It was the damn water. Or something in it.
My wife went to Japan for a holiday and the symptoms disappeared. The whole time she was over there my daughter was fine. As soon as she came back the symptoms started again.

So we knew it had to be something she wasn’t getting in Japan.. I thought, perhaps fluoride in the water. So we started giving our young one Tongariro Spring Water only. We even stopped giving her food cooked in tap water. Try doing that and see how easy it is. What a nightmare. But it worked. We started getting sleep at nights. It took us time to work out our young one can’t even wash or bathe in tap water. We have it down to her being washed in Tongariro spring water two nights in a row then a quick 15 minute bath in tap water the next night then back to spring water the next two nights..

I can’t help but wonder how many others are or have been in the same predicament in NZ. You can try diagnosing food allergies but who stops to think of not giving their child water?

The putting of chemicals totally unnecessarily in to our water supply is insane. If it was an absolute must situation perhaps but the grief it’s causing people is just not worth it.

And something else to think of, some parents couldn’t handle what I went though. Hell I’m still not sure how I did. I now understand why some parents lose the plot and hurt their children. Of course it doesn’t make it ok, but I now understand how people lose control after many months of sleep deprivation. It’s a night mare. Why would councils in NZ want to put people through this? It’s just not right.

Eddie Light