How could your heart not go out to this young boy and his family?

A boy of 12 suffers from so many allergies that he is able to eat only five foods.

Tyler Savage is violently ill every time he is given dishes containing dairy products or wheat, gluten, eggs, lactose and soya.

The sole foods he is allowed are chicken, carrots, grapes, potatoes and apples.

To help him survive, minerals and vitamins are pumped directly into his stomach through a tube.

Tyler started to fall ill at the age of six when even a morsel of food would leave him writhing in agony from sickness and diarrhoea.

His mother, Lynne Savage, 43, said: “We asked for help but kept being told that he was suffering from a stomach infection. As a result his weight dropped drastically.

“He ran out of energy really quickly and couldn’t do the things other children were doing. He just seemed to be getting worse and worse.

“It’s been a real struggle. We didn’t know what to do.”

Tyler - from Earls Colne in Essex - was seen by a paediatrician at Chelmsford’s St John’s Hospital and had his appendix removed in December 2005.

Although the operation was a success it failed to solve the problem and he was referred to Colchester General Hospital for further tests and treatment.

That shed no light on the mystery illness and in April last year Tyler was sent to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London for checks on his stomach and bowels.

The tests led to a diagnosis of eosinophilic enteropathy, a rare and condition in which the intestines produce too many white blood cells.

While there has been a method devised through modern medicine to provide this young man the nutrients his body requires to function normally, any time one hears of a child being afflicted with a difficulty such as this, you step back and realize how lucky and blessed you are if you have raised healthy children.