i guess xmas won't be early this year...

talked to t-man's new allergist this morning. we got back the results of his blood work and it was mixed. no great news, some good news, and some not so great news. for those who don't know, t-man was diagnosed with an egg and a peanut allergy about 3 1/2 years ago.


the background:
when he was 11 months old, i gave him some of my pancakes and he broke out in hives around his mouth. his eyes were itchy and watery as well. it wasn't a severe reaction but it was enough to mention it at his 1 year appointment. so they tested him for not only egg but a slew of other common food allergens (shellfish, wheat, corn, soy, peanuts, walnuts, etc.). he came back positive for egg and peanut.

for the past few years, i've been ultra-anal in eliminating the allergens from his diet in hope of giving him the best chance of outgrowing the allergies. when we got the initial diagnosis, i gave my mom not only all the products in our kitchen containing egg and nuts, but those that could have been contaminated as well - jelly (from knives with peanut butter), mustard (traces of mayo from double dipping a knife), etc. we are an egg and a nut free house, and we limit the food he eats outside of our house. we even avoid products that have been produced in a facility with eggs and nuts. it has been inconvenient to say the least.


i can't fully explain how stressful it is to go out to eat, travel, and even play at other people's homes. i'm constantly on alert - when he was first diagnosed, i even had dreams of t-man having an anaphylactic reaction and me having to administer the epi-pen to him. fortunately with time, i've learned how to "live around" his allergies - using egg replacers when baking, bringing "safe" cupcakes to birthday parties, cleaning the airplane floor of any peanuts before he gets into his seat, etc. it has become habit. and now it is the strangest feeling when i am out with just little miss k - when we can grab some munchkins with my D&D or that we can stop to eat anywhere without a second thought - it is the feeling of freedom.

anyway, t-man's numbers are very low for egg now. that's the good news. the ok news is that they are not low enough to do a food challenge this year, but if this trend continues, we should be able to do one next fall and hopefully (keep your fingers crossed) he will be able to tolerate egg in a year. as for the peanut, that is the bad news - his numbers were trending down. he was at 0.9 2 years ago. now, it jumped to 18! the allergist can't explain it. and the allergist is not convinced that he is even allergic to peanuts because he has never had a reaction (we've never given him peanuts) and the tests have a high rate of false positives (as much as 50%). but the numbers are way too high now to do a food challenge (could have done one at 0.9 - but he was only 2 at the time). so we don't know what is going on and won't know more until next year when we do another blood test. so it is status quo - we keep doing what we're doing. i just keep reminding myself, it could be worse. this is manageable.