By Kathy Chaffin
kchaffin@salisburypost.com
“Camera!” Seth Warren shouts excitedly as Post photographer Jon Lakey and intern Vanessa Silva start to take his picture.
“Camera!” he shouts again, then freezes into an adorable, smiling pose and says, “Cheeeeese.”
His parents, Rory and Kevin Warren, and grandparents Lorine and Danny Warren watch in amusement. “It’s all those pictures I took when he was little,” his mother, Rory, says. “We used to wonder how much flash a newborn can take.”
A little later, Seth begins climbing on chairs and whatever else he can find to achieve a higher elevation while reciting the alphabet. He appears to get stuck on “Y” and says it several times very loudly.
Rory explains. It seems Seth likes to jump on Y, and Lorine just sat down on his intended destination.
Minutes later, Seth sings along to his two favorite songs on his V.Smiles Learning System: “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”
“He’s my little karaoke king,” his mother says.
With bright blue eyes and blonde, curly hair, Seth appears to be the picture of health. There’s no visible evidence of his numerous allergies, which include 35 foods, most antibiotics, household cleaning products, grasses, animals and insects.
Seth’s allergies to eight of the foods ó dairy products, eggs, garlic, mustard, soy, peas, peanuts and tree nuts ó are severe enough to send him into anaphylactic shock, which can cause a sudden drop in blood pressure and difficulty breathing due to air passages swelling shut. These side effects can be fatal if not treated.
The Warrens, who live near Faith, keep an EpiPen with them at all times. The autoinjector of epinephrine treats anaphylactic shock.
Once, immediately after grandfather Danny kissed him on the forehead, Seth began breaking out in welts that started on his forehead and continued down his face. When Danny thought back on what could have caused the reaction, he recalled eating peanuts two hours before.
“That really made me just very, very cautious of everything,” Rory says. “This is when we started making people wash their lips and faces.”
They had already started asking visitors to remove their shoes and wash their hands before entering the house.
Seth’s allergy to eggs is also severe. “He can’t even be in a room with eggs cooking,” his grandfather says.
The only foods Seth is able to eat are bananas, oats, beef, corn, rye, rice, barley, black-eyed peas and collard greens, and for some of those, he can only tolerate certain brands. He can also eat chicken and salmon on a rotating basis.
Though Rory has three older sons from a previous marriage ó Bradly, Jarred and Joshua ó Seth was the first child for her and Kevin. They met as computer programmers at Food Lion’s corporate offices. “I sat the next cubicle over,” he says.
They worked together for two years before starting to date in 2003 and marrying the following year on Valentine’s Day. When Rory got pregnant in 2005, her allergy-related asthma worsened and she had to go on medication.
Seth appeared to be a normal, healthy infant when he was born Dec. 23 of that year, but at 2 weeks of age, he broke into a full body rash and began having digestive problems.
The Warrens’ pediatrician attributed it to baby acne, but Rory says it was different from what she had experienced with her other sons.
When she told her lactation nurse about Seth’s digestive problems, Rory says the nurse said it appeared to be a milk allergy. “I was advised to stop consuming all dairy products since I was breast-feeding and the proteins pass through the breast milk,” she wrote in a journal she started about Seth’s health issues.
By the time Rory’s maternity leave ended, Seth’s condition had worsened. He rarely slept, spit up almost constantly and would not sleep unless he was in a reclining position, she says.
Rory eventually had to quit her job to take care of him.
When Seth was 3 months old, his body continued to break out in a rash and he developed an open, oozing sore on his cheek that would not heal. His pediatrician referred him to a dermatologist, who told Rory and Kevin he had eczema and prescribed topical creams, which didn’t help.
At 6 months, the Warrens took Seth to an allergist, who did a skin prick test for food allergies. Rory, who was breast-feeding, was told to avoid the ones that tested positive.
Within hours of taking the tests, Seth broke out in a full-body rash, and the sore on his cheek spread to his chin. “We were given more creams that didn’t help. This rash lasted approximately nine months.”
In his first year of life, Rory says Seth was seen by four pediatricians, two dermatologists and three allergists, none of whom had any solid answers.
One dermatologist told the Warrens to give Seth bleach baths, which made him cry. They stopped giving them to him after Kevin took a bath with him and found out firsthand how the bleach water made his skin burn.
Seth had just turned 1 when Rory joined a Web site called kidswithfoodallergies.org, which has been very helpful and connected her with other parents of children going through similar issues.
At age 13 months, Seth underwent tests by a naturopathic doctor, which were not covered by their health insurance. Results showed deficiencies in essential fatty acids and zinc, which can cause numerous problems ranging from eczema-like breakouts to sudden cardiac death.
The doctor prescribed supplements, which were also not covered by insurance, and Rory and Kevin started seeing positive results within six weeks.
As Seth grew, so did his ability to get into food he wasn’t supposed to eat. At age 17 months, when Rory briefly left the table, he took a bite of bread from her plate and broke out in hives. They gave him Benadryl and ended up calling 911 when he started wheezing.
By the time the medic team arrived, Seth’s wheezing had subsided, so they watched him for a while, took his vitals and instructed the Warrens to call 911 if he got any worse.
The Warrens got an EpiPen for Seth when he was about 18 months old.
In September of 2007, Rory went into anaphylactic shock after eating a peach ó and then got her own EpiPen.
In Seth’s second year, Rory wrote in her journal, she and Kevin decided to remove all of Seth’s severe food allergies from their house. They also learned not to allow him to ride in a grocery cart or to play on public playgrounds due to his allergic reactions.
Rory says Seth matured intellectually very quickly and began to be fascinated with numbers and letters. He memorized the alphabet and the sounds of each letter by age 16 months and learned to count at 18 months.
In April of last year, Rory and Kevin took Seth to the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, Colo., for two weeks, where he underwent tests to determine what foods he can eat and which allergies are life threatening.
The Warrens plan to take Seth for neurological and genetic testing at Duke Children’s Hospital & Health Center on April 27. They hope doctors there will be able to find any underlying causes of Seth’s allergies and deficiencies.
Rory says Seth’s allergies will likely prevent him from going to public school, so she plans to home-school him.
It’s a little scary for the Warrens to share Seth’s story in the newspaper. “But if his story could help just one person, then it’s all worth it,” Rory says.
It is the Warrens’ hope that doctors will send more children to be tested for food allergies. Rory says some parents don’t find out their children have them until they suffer severe allergic reactions.
“Some of them don’t survive,” she says.
Contact Kathy Chaffin at 704-797-4249.