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He cried all the time. Not even a year old, it was clear he was in pain. But his diagnosis led to an even bigger revelation for nearly the entire family. Ashton had a food allergy.

“If I ate Chinese, he cried,” Leslie said of breast-feeding her son. “When I ate chocolate, he cried.”

She ordered a McDonald’s salad and had just a little bit of salad dressing. Ashton cried for three days.

When Ashton was finally diagnosed with a food allergy, it put problems she and her other two sons experienced in a whole new perspective. Leslie, 31, had suffered with fibromyalgia. Five-year-old Cameron suffered headaches, leg aches and tummy aches for much of his life — he had eczema so bad in his first year he looked like he had a constant sunburn.

It turned out Leslie is gluten intolerant; her middle son, 4-year-old Colton, is milk protein intolerant; Ashton has a milk protein allergy; and Cameron is allergic to soy (which he drank the year he had eczema) and an intolerance to gluten and milk protein.

It was a lot for Leslie and her husband Chris to digest. All these years taking their sons to doctors and nobody made the connection between their symptoms and food until Ashton’s allergy became so severe. Chris is the only family member who does not have any food intolerances or allergies.

“The hardest part is trying to figure out what it is and getting someone to listen to you,” Leslie said.

There are more than 12 million Americans who have a food allergy — 6.9 million are allergic to seafood and 3.3 million are allergic to peanuts and tree nuts, according to the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network. Eight foods cause about 90 percent of food allergies in the U.S. — milk, eggs, wheat, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish and fish. And when one family member is diagnosed, let alone four, it usually alters life for the entire family.

Once the Payne family removed gluten, milk protein and soy from their diets, their individual conditions improved. Ashton is a happy 1-year-old. Cameron and Colton are playful, inquisitive little boys. And Leslie’s fibromyalgia? It’s gone.

The Paynes had to completely change their lifestyle. Eating out is virtually impossible, and shopping is a challenge. Milk protein, known as casein or whey, is used to enhance color and flavor of some foods. Gluten is in wheat, barley, rye and sometimes oats. And to make things tougher, these foods can be listed under a variety of names on ingredient labels.

Just having pizza for supper is not as simple as calling for a delivery. Leslie uses tapioca or rice flour for the crust. And cheese is not even an option.

The only restaurant the family goes to in town is Outback Steakhouse, which has a gluten-free menu.

Kim Bradshaw has known the Paynes for a few years. Kim remembers when Leslie and Chris first received the family’s diagnoses. Little did she know her family would be hit with similar news.

Bradshaw has three daughters. The oldest, age 10, is lactose intolerant. Her 2-year-old cannot have dairy or soy. Her 5-year-old has a long list of foods she cannot eat — no gluten, dairy, corn, soy, nuts as well as some fruits and vegetables.

Like the Paynes, Kim and her husband knew something was wrong, especially with their 5-year-old daughter. At a day old, she stopped breathing. She had acid reflux. There were behavioral problems. Nobody, not even the doctors, even considered a food allergy.

“They never did put it together,” Bradshaw said. “They did tests on her. They had a sleep apnea monitor on her. They never knew what was wrong with her.”

“First, you have to eliminate about everything and slowly re-introduce everything,” Bradshaw said of food. “Before all this, I put no connection between food and how the your body would react.”

Allergy or intolerance?
There is a difference between a food allergy and a food intolerance. A food allergy is when the immune system identifies a food protein as a threat and attempts to protect the body against it by releasing chemicals into the blood. This release leads to an allergic reaction, which in severe cases could be life-threatening if anaphylaxis occurs. A food intolerance — such as lactose intolerance — may have some of the same symptoms of a food allergy such as upset stomach and diarrhea, but it does not involve the immune system.

Source: The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network, http://www.foodallergy.org

Facts about food allergies:
Peanut allergy doubled in children over a five-year period between 1997 and 2002.

A 2007 study has shown that milk allergy may persist longer in life than previously thought. Of 800 children with milk allergy, only 19 percent had outgrown their allergy by age 4, and only 79 percent had outgrown it by age 16.

More than 12 million Americans have food allergies. That’s one in 25 or 4 percent of the population.

Symptoms of an allergic reaction to food can include tingling, itching, a metallic taste, hives, wheezing, vomiting and cramping. The severity of symptoms can vary with each reaction.

In the U.S., food allergy is the leading cause of anaphylaxis (a severe allergic reaction) outside the hospital setting. Each year in the U.S., it is estimated that anaphylaxis caused by food results in 100 to 200 deaths. Death can be sudden, sometimes occurring within minutes.

Even trace amounts of a food allergen can cause a reaction.

Early administration of epinephrine (adrenaline) is crucial to successfully treating anaphylactic reactions.