Another Allergy Update

I realize I haven't posted the latest on Aiden's newly discovered food allergy, so here it is.

Apparently there is a wide range of egg allergies and reactions. We still don't know what Aiden's is but hope to find out before long. He has eaten baked goods with eggs in them and seemed to be fine. If you think about it, you eat very little egg when consuming baked goods... For example, my banana bread (that he recently ate) is made with two eggs; the recipe makes two loaves. Aiden eats half of a slice (and I do not slice thickly). So...it's very minimal.

Now, he has had scrambled eggs, but only a couple times because we just don't eat that very often. We never noticed a reaction before (but we also weren't looking for it), BUT...looking back at the last time he ate them, we now know he DID have a reaction. He was eating other breakfast foods, including fruit, and he got red around his lips and on his chin. We just assumed it was from the fruit juice irritating his sensitive skin and brushed off any serious concern. This has happened a couple times, too, and it seemed minimal enough to not worry - so we don't even remember what foods he was eating at the time, and it's likely we attributed it to something else that seemed to make sense (and could have been wrong). In this case, we know he was also eating eggs at the same time. And he's since eaten this same fruit - a lot - without any reaction. Had to be the eggs then.

We also found out that the egg whites in Aiden's birthday cake icing were cooked - at 200 degrees. The egg whites that caused the nasty hives that let us know he was clearly allergic. So, they weren't raw, but we're not sure at what point he may be ok to eat eggs...if they're cooked to a certain point, etc.

We went back to the other doctor (the ENT/allergist) on Monday and were expecting to do blood work to find out more. That's what the nurse had told us, at least. But the doctor did not plan on that... I think it has more to do with his specialty and that he is not a pediatric allergist. He does not do skin pricks on children this young, and the blood test he can do takes a good amount of blood, which requires a child to sit still for a while (which is pretty hard with a one-year-old). He kept saying he took 5ccs...but I don't know what that means (EDITED - My friend, Corley, let me know that 5ccs is a teaspoon. Thanks!). He actually asked at one point if either of us were in a field with biology or chemistry because we followed everything he said so well and understood it all. Ha. We explained we do a lot of research on our own. I think sometimes he was just assuming we knew everything he could tell us; good and bad with that because he told us a lot, most of which we actually did understand.

Anyway, his advice was to eliminate the eggs from Aiden's and return in 6-8 months for the testing OR to go to a pediatric allergist and have testing done now. We actually had an appointment with a pediatric allergist at Duke (in case you're wondering why we didn't do that first!), BUT our family doctor's office couldn't get us in until the end of October. So, we were given this appointment with the ENT/allergist because it was much sooner.

We did, however, KEEP that other appointment, just in case. We have spoken with a nurse there, and they will do the skin prick and a blood test. Different people have offered their opinion on whether or not we should go on with the skin prick with Aiden being so young - because a number of allergens will be introduced to his system. We feel that this is the best course of action. Based on what we have been told, the blood test will only tell us that, yes, he is allergic to eggs, but with the skin prick, we can find out more about his reactions (and maybe to the different ways he could be exposed to egg - ?). We will be in an environment that can deal with anything that could come up, though we don't expect problems. This is one reason the first doctor doesn't do these tests with babies, aside from the fact that it's hard to keep them still for so long - the possible reactions, including anaphylaxis. We have been told by others that have had the skin prick that it isn't actually painful, just itchy. Who knows how Aiden will do being still or doing what they need while the test is done, but we'll work through it. We have been put on a list to change our appointment in case some others are canceled, but we're not sure if that will get us in sooner or not. As of now, we will not be there until late October, and I'm not sure if they will do the tests on our first visit or not.

We were still advised to remove cow's milk from Aiden's diet and give him rice milk, which he will drink sometimes but sometimes wants nothing to do with. (He is still nursing fairly often, so we aren't at the point where we rely on other forms of milk completely.) Milk allergies are closely linked with egg allergies, and so this is more of a preventative measure. We'll keep doing this for now and see what the pediatric allergist says after we do further testing.

Thanks for keeping us (especially Aiden!) in your thoughts. We appreciate it! :)