Another Food Allergy

After Will's blood work from the chickpea allergy test came back normal, we went back in for a chickpea skin test.  I had to bring in a can of chickpeas for the doctor to use for the test.  When he came back in to check out the results, I shook my head that it was negative.  He whipped out his little measuring thing and corrected me.  "No, it's positive," he said.  I was somewhat in disbelief because I had already convinced myself it was a peanut cross-contamination.  Plus, I'm used to seeing a giant whelp from the peanut allergy, and this one was much smaller. 

Peanut (by the "C")

Turns out, it has to be a certain amount larger than the histamine test spot for it to be a positive reaction, and his was.  When I looked closer at it, I could see that.

Chickpea (third line)

(the red dot between the H and J is an eczema patch)

So it's confirmed that Will has two known food allergies.  Both of which cause an anaphylactic reaction.  Peanuts and chickpeas.  The difference between the two is that he will likely outgrow the chickpea allergy.  The peanut is so bad, however, it's not likely he'll outgrow it.  But there's always hope.

If you eat either of these around Will, please wash your hands and your mouth before touching or kissing him.  We don't want another ride in an ambulance. :)

Allergic Reaction Scare

After church a couple of Sundays ago (July 15th), Will and I ate lunch while Wayne went outside to cut the grass.  Around 1:00 pm, Wayne came in from finishing the yard and sat down in his chair to eat some hummus.  Will walked up to him wanting to eat some (as he always does when he sees us eating), and Wayne asked, "Can he have some hummus?"

"Sure," I replied.  After all, it was the plain kind...no nuts or anything strange in it.

Wayne gave Will a tiny little piece of pita with an even tinier amount of hummus on it.  Will loved it, and immediately went back for more two more times.  Then he suddenly acted like he didn't like it anymore and came over to me.  I picked him up and put him on the couch with me.  As he was climbing all over the couch, I noticed he started to cough and clear his throat some.  I looked at his mouth and saw that it was red all around it.

"Something's not right," I said to Wayne as I picked Will up in my arms.

When I pulled him closer, I realized he had broken out in hives all around his mouth and on his forehead.

Will has had skin reactions to things he has eaten (like when he had milk for the first time), but it has always been in the form of eczema.  Never hives.  And not this quickly.

We knew something was wrong.

He continued to cough and started gagging, dry heaving and drooling a lot.  We gave him some Zyrtec, and I called the doctor.  Because it was Sunday, I got the answering service.  I told the nurse that we had an Epi-pen, but I wasn't sure when to use it since he'd never had a reaction like this before.  After describing his symptoms to her, she told me I needed to call 911.

Ugh.  Really?

Wayne and I couldn't believe this was happening.  And with hummus of all things!

A fire truck showed up first and the firemen came inside to check Will out.  About 20-25 minutes had passed from the time Will first reacted and the hives were already gone.  I was thinking we were in the clear because he seemed to be doing better and the coughing/gagging had subsided some.

Then the ambulance arrived.  The paramedics came in and assessed Will.  I was really thinking at this point that he was better and we didn't need the ambulance.  One of the paramedics asked who was going to be riding with him, and I said, "Oh, we're going still?"

"Oh yeah," he replied in a no-doubt-about-it tone.

A few seconds later, Will started throwing up.  And I was good to get him in the ambulance.

We had to use his old car seat because his new one is too difficult to get out of the car, but he was fine it it.  They strapped it to the gurney and hooked him up to a few monitors.  They had me hold an oxygen mask in front of his face for a little while, but Will did not like that at all.  He eventually won that battle.

Wayne drove behind us.  It was hard for him because he didn't know what was going on in the ambulance.  He kept praying that the ambulance wouldn't suddenly turn the lights and siren on and start going faster.

When we finally got to Scottish Rite around 2:15 pm, Will was extremely tired and just laid on me as I carried him in.  Wayne's mom Betty met us at the hospital, and it was very comforting that she was standing there as I was getting out of the ambulance with Will.  We got checked into a room, and I noticed a rash had developed on him.  It started right under his chin and spread down onto his chest and stomach.

The doctor gave him Benadryl and a steroid and said we would be staying a couple of hours for observation. 

We hoped Will would take a nap, especially after the Benadryl.  Ha!  I guess we thought for a minute that we had a different child.  There was waaaay too much going on for Will to sleep.  And trying to keep him on a hospital bed with nothing more than a cartoon movie on the TV in the room didn't work too well for us.  He. was. wired.

A little while later, we noticed that the rash had gotten much worse, even though he'd had Benadryl and a steroid.

The doctor came in to look at it and said it was just the reaction running its course.  Poor Will had to be miserable though.  It looked and felt like a sunburn.  The doctor mentioned that the rash could come and go over the next few days, especially in the heat.  He gave us prescriptions for a steroid and a prescription-strength Benadryl.

After the meds started kicking in, Will began to look and feel better.  We were released around 4:30 pm, and Will fell asleep in the car right away.

The events of the day didn't hit me until just before we got home.  I was sitting in the back of the car next to Will, and suddenly realized how scary the day had been.  We've known for a year now that he has a severe allergy to peanuts.  We found that out last July.  And we have done a really good job of avoiding peanuts.  We always ask anyone who eats peanuts around Will to wash his or her hands and mouth before touching him, and we do the same.  We've also known that one day, he will accidentally eat one.  And we will have to deal with his reaction.  The scary part is hearing about or reading stories like this one.  Now, Will doesn't have only one allergy that could be life-threatening.  As a parent, that realization is a tough pill to swallow.  I'm so thankful for my cousins who have sons older than Will with peanut allergies.  They've given me a lot of comfort and good advice.  My cousin Dawn is allergic-as-allergic-can-get to peanuts herself, so she has been a great source of encouragement for me as well.

Wayne says all the time, "You know it's going to happen one day, so get ready."

I never in a million years thought it would happen with hummus.

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We went to the allergist this past Tuesday to see if we could figure out what made him react like that.  The doctor tested Will for sesame and chickpea since those were the two main allergenic foods in the ingredients besides soy.  We know he's not allergic to soy because he eats soybeans and drinks soy milk.  I cook his vegetables in canola oil to help him gain weight, so it's not that either.  We knew it wasn't the pita because all it has is wheat, and he eats that all the time.  He also retested him for peanuts and all tree nuts. 

Yep.  Still very allergic to peanuts.  (The huge hive around the "C".)

 

The skin test for sesame was negative.  They didn't have one for chickpea, so we had to walk over to Scottish Rite to do a chickpea blood test.  We don't know the results of the blood work yet, but if it comes back negative, the doctor said he will order a chickpea skin test to try.  If that's negative, I don't know what we'll do.  The label for the hummus doesn't say it was produced in a plant with peanuts, so cross-contamination isn't very likely.

The allergist did say that Will's reaction was anaphylactic and not to wait to use the Epi-pen if it happens again.  I'm confused on that though because the paramedic said to only use it as a last resort, if we see him physically struggling to get air. 

I hope we never have to experience that. 

Anyone else had a similar reaction to hummus?

Will's First Birthday Party, the Aftermath

The day of Will's first birthday party was a crazy and hectic day.  Will refused to take his afternoon nap before the party, as I'm sure he could feel the stress energy in the house.  Add in the fact that our house was full of people, some familiar and some not to our little man, and no one was surprised Will was acting a little more subdued than normal.

He didn't seem phased when he was the center of attention and everyone was singing Happy Birthday to him and watching/laughing while he ate his cake.  (He gets that from his dad.)

But we were a little worried how all that sugar would make him later, 

especially since it was his first taste of sugar.  Ever.

The first problem we had was Will had an allergic reaction to the cake.  Obviously, there were no peanuts in the cake, and since that's his only known allergy, we didn't think there would be a problem.  I left the room while Will ate most of his cake (I don't remember why, exactly...talking to people, I'm sure), but Wayne was in there with him.  It wasn't long before Wayne was calling me in there with a bit of urgency in his voice.  Will's poor arms were covered in the largest whelps I've ever seen.  We quickly gave him some Zyrtec, and Wayne took him straight up to the bathtub.  Most people had already left at this point, and Will was (not surprisingly) acting very sleepy when Wayne brought him back down from the bath.  His arms were already getting better, and he didn't seem at all bothered by the reaction.

By the time it was bedtime, poor Will was falling asleep in my arms.  But who could blame him?  It had been a long, exciting/exhausting day, and he hadn't napped since 9am that morning.  We put him to bed, and went to bed early ourselves.  We hadn't been asleep 30 minutes before Will woke up crying/screaming in a way we knew something was wrong.  Wayne went in his room and called me in there.  The poor guy was burning up with a fever.  After some Tylenol and snuggles from both of us, I was able to rock him back to sleep.

The next morning, he awoke with a fever again.  

We kept the fever down with Tylenol throughout the day, and I alerted the other moms who had been at the party in case he had something that was contagious.  Each time he ate that day, we noticed some red spots appearing on his face and arms.  We gave him some Benedryl because we assumed it was still from the allergic reaction to the cake.

The next morning (Monday, his actual birthday) he awoke looking like this.

I called his pediatrician and we got an appointment that morning. 

The spots were all over his face, hands, arms and feet. 

When she looked at him, she said, "I bet I'll find some spots in his mouth... yep."  He had hand, foot and mouth disease, not to be confused with hoof and mouth disease.  She said it was similar to chicken pox in that it's extremely contagious almost every child gets it.  When I asked if Wayne and I could get it, she said we probably already had it as children.  Of course, I felt awful that we'd just had all those kids over and exposed them to it, so I let all the moms know the diagnosis.  All but two of the kids at his party ended up getting it.  Some of the other kids didn't get any visible spots, so they never would have known what the fever was caused from if they hadn't gone to the doctor.  The doctors can see the sores in their mouths, but us moms couldn't see them.

A week later, I took Will back to the pediatrician for his one-year check-up.  

It was then that she told me Will had the worst case of HF&M she'd ever seen.

The fever didn't come back after Sunday, and within a couple of days, Will was feeling better.  The spots and blisters hung around for a few weeks before they all finally went away.  Honestly, I was a little worried some might leave scars, but thankfully they didn't. 

We still don't know what caused the allergic reaction to the cake.  Will has had dairy (in cheese and yogurt) and eggs, the two main allergy culprits in cake, and has been fine.  His pediatrician said it could have been from the food coloring in the icing, but we might not ever know for sure.  We're just happy the reaction wasn't any worse.

Reflux and peanut allergy update

Reflux
I seem to often write posts right before we go to the doctor, but I'm not good about following up on here and giving an update.  As previously mentioned, Will went to his pediatric GI a few weeks ago for a weight check and to see how he was doing since we started giving him bottles of pumped breast milk with 1.5 tsp of formula added for extra calories.  He was 14 lbs, which meant he didn't gain any weight for at least 2 weeks because at his 6-month appointment 2 weeks before that, he weighed 14lbs 1oz.  Since he wasn't gaining well enough with the bottles of pumped milk, the doctor said I didn't have to do that anymore if it was stressing me out (which it was).  I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders!  Pumping was incredibly stressful because it was more constricting than nursing, and Will is more efficient than the pump, so I could never pump enough. 

The issue (as I thought) is his reflux medicine is just not doing the trick.  The actual dosage of the medicine is 1.5mL, but he can't tolerate that dose because it makes his intestines cramp.  So we cut back to 1mL, and bumped it back up to 1.2mL when 1mL wasn't helping, which still isn't working.  The only thing it does is keep him from spitting up as much as he did before he started the medicine.  So the poor little guy is still in pain from the acid that keeps coming back up during and after he eats, which makes him not want to eat much. 

The GI has referred us to a feeding therapist at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.  Since I've never heard of a feeding therapist, I don't know much about what she will do.  I do know that she's also a speech therapist and has 11 letters after her name, so that must mean she knows what she's talking about, right?  When I asked the doctor why he was sending us to her, he mostly said, "I think she can help you."  I don't really know what that means.  In my mind, I'm wondering why not a lactation consultant?  But I see one every Friday at my mom group, and we've never had any physical issues with Will's mouth that would normally lead a nursing baby to physical or occupational therapy, so I'm still confused.  The one thing the GI said that made the most sense to me was that often babies with severe reflux like Will can develop a food aversion, so the feeding therapist will help us avoid that hopefully.  I've also learned that it's the common next step for reflux babies to go to a feeding therapist when the medicine isn't cutting it.  Has anyone out there ever been to one or know what we can expect when we go?

As with most specialists, the first appointment we could get was for a month later.  That month is almost up now, finally.  Our appointment is for Monday October 3rd, and I'm looking forward to being one step closer to finding a solution for my little man. 

Peanut Allergy
The last time I wrote about Will's peanut allergy, we thought that perhaps his allergy wasn't that bad.  When we got the blood work results back, we learned that's not the case.  Unfortunately, Will's peanut allergy is in the "Very High" category.  I asked the allergist, based on his experience what he thought Will's prognosis will be (while knowing he can't know 100% for sure).  He said that in his experience, babies or kids with it this high do not grow out of it. :(  This news made me very sad for my baby boy.  Wayne's favorite food is peanut butter.  I've always gotten him Reese's cakes for his birthday, his mom makes her famous peanut butter cookies every Christmas, he could eat a bucket of boiled peanuts in one sitting, and overall, peanut butter is a staple in our house.  The good news is Will won't know what he's missing.  The bad news is we are now armed with Epi Pens.  Since the allergy is much worse than originally thought, we'll have to be extra cautious to make sure Will doesn't come into contact with any peanuts.  If we ever eat peanuts or peanut butter (not me until I'm done nursing, obviously), we'll have to wash our hands and mouth before touching Will.  If it gets on his skin, it makes him break out in a rash. 

When I was pregnant, I couldn't eat deli meat (there's a bacteria that can cause miscarriage), so peanut butter and jelly sandwiches replaced turkey sandwiches.  I ate a lot of them.  I can't help but wonder if that caused his allergy.  It already has me wondering what kind of sandwiches I'll eat the next time I get pregnant.  Peanut allergies are so common these days, especially in boys.  What are we eating that's causing this?  I wish I knew.

Diagnosis: Food allergy

As I've said previously, we've been having a hard time trying to figure out what's going on with Will.  In his first few weeks of life, he showed signs of reflux and had already developed eczema...two problems that I, unfortunately, know all too well.  At his 4-month check up, I asked his doctor about his skin because of how bad it was getting, but she said "keep doing what you've been doing," which is Cortisone cream twice a day.  I was uncomfortable with that, but she's the doctor, so I listened.  The next week, I went back in because it had gotten so bad around his eyes that they were swollen.  His normal pediatrician was out of town, so we saw the other one.  As soon as she walked in, she said she was going to refer us to an allergist.  THANK YOU!!!  I had been asking if we should have him tested for a while, but his normal doc never entertained my question.

This is what his back looked like last night.  His whole body looks like this.  As someone who suffers from eczema myself, I can't imagine how bad that must feel to him.  Thankfully, he doesn't know to scratch it because that makes it so much worse.

His appointment with the allergist was today.  After talking to the doctor for a while about his symptoms and how long it had been going on, they did the scratch test to test him for the most common food allergies.  I have been praying for an answer.  I've never wanted my child to suffer from anything, but when he does, I want to know what it is so we can fix it, or at least treat it.  Not long after they did the scratch test, I knew we had an answer.  (This was after only a couple of minutes...it was even worse by the time the doctor came in.)

PEANUTS.  No wonder eliminating dairy and soy from my diet didn't make things any better.  He's not allergic to either one of those!  Fortunately, it's not anaphylactic and we caught it early enough so I doubt it would ever turn into that.  And although he didn't react to tree nuts, the doctor told me to stay away from those as well because he could develop that allergy over time if he's exposed to them.

The doctor said eliminating peanuts from my diet alone won't get rid of the eczema, so he prescribed a steroid cream and gave us instructions for a strict bath/lotion regimen that we'll follow until it gets better.

He'll also be on baby Zyrtec until the itching and scratching gets under control.  He scratches his head so much that he's pulled all of his hair out except in the back.  He also scratches his eyes.  The scratching only makes the itching worse, so it's a vicious cycle that has to be stopped.  Wouldn't you think this was itchy, too? 

Bye bye weekly PB&J's and daily almond milk...

Of all the food allergies he could have had, I feel like peanut is probably easier to avoid than things like dairy, soy, egg or wheat.  He'll get to have a cake on his first birthday... just not a Reese's Peanut Butter cake (his daddy's favorite). 

I don't love the diagnosis, but I'm thankful to officially and finally have one.  No more guessing and wondering.  Maybe now our precious baby boy can get some relief and start feeling better.
(And maybe mom and dad can, too.)

Here's to hoping.