the good, the bad, and the food allergies

We finally had Sawyer's appointment with an allergist this week. Boy, was it a doozy.
Ryan ended up meeting us at the office since it was just (figuratively speaking) down the road from his office. I was so glad he did. First, for the skin prick tests... Sawyer was miserable and it really took both of us to keep him restrained and distracted. And then to continue into the city to find the Children's Hospital for the big blood draw (and the waiting. Did I mention the waiting?). I dropped Savannah off at the Swinigan's for the morning at 9am to get to Sawyer's appointment on time... I didn't get back to pick her up until after 2 o'clock!!

Anyway, after my poor little boy was pricked up at the office and then his backside turned into pretty much one big itchy welt, here are the results of his reactions:
He seems to have mostly outgrown his milk/soy/wheat allergies. We're looking for more details to come from his blood work, but apparently that's not what aggravates his eczema anymore, as when he was in infant.
Turns out he is fairly allergic to dustmites (all four types they test for) and also... cat hair. -Which I find odd because we only just got those cats 7 months ago and have noticed no difference whatsoever in either his skin or a nose/eye reaction as opposed to the 2 years before that. Hmm.
But. Apparently they are discovering a huge dustmite allergy/eczema link these days. And he tested pretty high for that allergy. So while day to day, his eczema is not a huge issue; it rarely gets out of control and really doesn't bother him at all these days (it more looks bad than itches him), if we make a few changes around here (deep cleaning his room, sealing up his pillows and mattress, reducing stuffed animals, hot water washing his bedding/clothes often) it just might clear up completely.
We're going back to the allergist in three months to check up on those levels... and she said if we work hard on the dustmite front and don't see a change, we might talk about the cat thing. Which like I said, I honestly don't know if the cats would make much of a difference because we've seen absolutely no change from when we got them. We'll see.

The real biggie, which was the reason we took him in in the first place... the nuts.
The tests confirmed Sawyer is allergic to peanuts. Very highly allergic, actually, according to the skin test reaction. The dr said she was actually surprised we hadn't observed a bigger reaction before.
Those of you who've been around us lately know that we've suspected this allergy. Last spring, right before we left Michigan we were at a school picnic and on the way home Sawyer's eyes got puffy and red and he was sneezing and rubbing and itching and coughing and miserable. Ryan took him into the dr, they dosed him with some antihistimine, he calmed right down and they said it was definitely an allergic reaction, but no one had any idea as to what. The dr said it was probably something in the air at the park we were at. I didn't think so, as he'd never had any problem with hayfever or grasses before... and never did again. I figured there must have been something we didn't know about in something he ate at the picnic.
Then last fall, I absentmindedly gave Sawyer a peanut butter granola bar on our way out the door one morning and he had the exact same reaction. Once again, Benadryl calmed him right down. Since then, we've avoided obvious nuts and peanut butter stuff. I haven't been concerned with ingredients, or ingredient contamination, but just steered clear of the obvious and warned everyone else of no peanuts out of caution.
Well, I finally got a referral from our pediatrician to an allergy specialist for him this spring. The first appointment we made was actually for this coming September... that's how long the wait was and how far they were scheduling out!! Luckily because he's not a current patient or on any kind of regular steroid or antihistimine, he could be seen at any time and we were on the fast track waiting list to be called if they had a cancellation. We got a good break and got right in this past week!!

Which was a good thing, because it turns out I need to be much more vigilant on the peanut front. The dr gave us a stern lecture on nut allergies and that even though up until this point Saywer has had relatively mild reactions, it seems with peanut allergies reactions get progressively worse with each exposure and just because he was fine last time, doesn't mean he'd be fine the next time. And as with most nut allergies, it's probably a lifelong issue... rarely outgrown like some other food allergies.
So now we're making a few changes around here, surveying our pantry and watching ingredient lists, etc. And we're now equipped with a couple of Epi-pens that we have to keep with him at all times and all that good stuff. Kinda scary if I think about it too hard. You know, a life threatening anaphylaxis allergy and all that.

But at least we found out before it was an unforeseen, unknowing scary. And as long as the people around us know to be looking out for Sawyer and what he's eating, and with the direction of schools, churches, camps and other centers going more and more nut-free these days, with severe food allergies seeming to be becoming more and more common, at least I know it's not an impossible obstacle course.