Tuesday, October 29, 2013

allergy testing

The next step in Eosinophilic Esophagitis is find out what foods are making Little M miserable so off to  allergy testing we went. His back was swabbed and the nurses commented on how little his back is and that they would have to make all the pricks fit.


The pin pricks were painful for Little M. He wriggled and he winced but kept quiet. After 15 minutes, there were a lot of welts. But the right side of his body didn't form welts so the nurses had to prepare injections to put on his arms.


I thought maybe 6 or so injections, but no. There were about 20 and I was told to hold him down. This one was painful for my little guy. He cried. He cried silently. He didn't scream, he didn't thrash around which was to me, a lot sadder. He took it better than adults and the nurses told him so.

He tested positive for dogs, cats, molds, dust mites, trees, grass. For food he tested positive for rice, wheat, soy, eggs, peas, green beens, chicken, beef, lamb, pork.

As far as food allergies goes, most people are only allergic to a few. Being 3 years old, and the history of skin tests, it is deemed not highly reliable but this test does give people a starting point on which foods to avoid and reintroduce in order to narrow down the list.

From what I've learned, all foods are eliminated at once for a couple of months or until the absence of any symptoms and then reintroduced one at a time. Each time a food is introduced, we determine whether it is a pass or fail. Any symptoms would be a fail. We wait a certain amount of time, and then another endoscopy to wait for a clean one before another food is introduced. 

Pause. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. 

I thank God for giving me such an easy going kid as my youngest. Ever since birth we noticed how he just rolled with flow. I dragged this little monkey everywhere, to his sisters and brother's appointments, my appointments, school functions, etc. I still do. He was easy. Nowadays he is exercising his own will, but he is such a great kid. I thank God that his siblings are in school and I can take him to his appointments without much disruption to our routine. I thank God it's not cancer. I thank God it's not life-threatening. I thank God. But being thankful doesn't stop the bad days from coming.




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