(By JPC)
Today I took Ellie to a new allergist. It wasn't because our previous allergist was terrible, but he was much more focused on the diagnostic aspect without paying any attention to the issue of helping the upset parent figure out how to manage these allergies. (Actually the short story is that he told me that Ellie was allergic to egg and dairy and then gave me a brochure for an on-line group for parents with food allergies - appropriate but not quite enough for the mother of a then 18 month old.)
The good news is that I absolutely loved the new allergist and more appropriately, I trusted him and felt heard by him. He asked me a lot of questions about Ellie's medical and allergy history, but also questions about what kinds of things she's eating now, what dairy and egg alternatives we've tried, etc. And most importantly for me, he started off our appointment by telling me that Ellie will most likely grow out of both allergies by the time she is 5 or 6! It is not a guarantee and no one can predict which kids will outgrow them and which won't, but the statistics of food allergies are on our side. Our previous allergist had made it seem much more dire so I felt immediate relief.
Today we spent 30 minutes with the allergist in his office just talking and outlining a plan of action. The short version is this....
- Ellie had her blood drawn there today and they will measure the antigens in her blood to dairy and egg. This will tell us exactly how allergic she is to these things. This is important for Ellie because although she develops hives when she eats any dairy product, the skin test did not show that she was allergic to dairy earlier this year. We'll get those results in 2 weeks.
- In 6-8 months we'll go back and measure them again in hopes that the antigens will decrease, meaning that her allergy to that product is decreasing as she gets older. She'll then have this done every 6 months.
- Once they have decreased a certain amount, we will actually challenge her by feeding her one of those items and watching for a reaction. This will be done in the doctor's office since her reactions in the past have been pretty bad.
This is at least my understanding of the plan. He didn't know how long this would all take since there's no guarantee that her allergies will resolve. At this point, we will plan to see him every 6 months until that happens. He also did an exam today and told me that her skin and eczema look terrific and that we are doing a great job taking care of that. Yay!
We're of course really hoping that she will be one of the kids to outgrow her allergies, but if not, at least we've found a good partner to manage this with. Yes, we will be disappointed and yes, it will make some things harder for us and harder for Ellie, but I'm optimistic today that this is something that can be managed. We'll update everyone once we get the test results.
Here's a photo of Ellie eating one of her new favorite snacks - chips and salsa! Desperate to find foods that she can eat AND will like, we will try anything, even foods that most toddlers don't like. Tonight we sat on the couch, watching Sesame Street, and she ate a huge bowl of salted lima beans like they were popcorn!
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