Egg Challenge ~ Update

Because of course there has to be an UPDATE... Nothing can ever be too simple, right?

So, if you read the previous post about the egg-challenge, you know that Aiden wouldn't really cooperate. He had some hives where the egg touched his face, but the point was to see if he would react when consuming it. So, we rescheduled for next Feb. Now, while Aiden wasn't going along with the whole "eat the egg" thing, actually spitting out the one real bite he finally put in his mouth...I did manage to get him to eat two tiny pieces. When I say "tiny," I mean they were each smaller than half of a baby pea. Seriously - TINY! But that wasn't enough. He was supposed to really eat the stuff.

This was on Wednesday.

Then Thursday came around. And Aiden had hives. All over. It started out as just a few on his forehead and some on his arm. Maybe 14 total. Throughout the day, they just multiplied, though. I don't know how many times I counted, but I do know that Aiden started out the day reacting one way to the counting: "Let me see how many hives you have, Aiden." "Hives? One, two, three..." He hears the word hives and just starts counting on his own. But by the end of the day, he was fed up with it and wouldn't stand still. I attempted to quickly count before bedtime, while he twisted and turned and tried to get away, and I know there were at least 50, but there were more I couldn't count - not too many more than that, though. They started out on his arms, hands, and forehead. By later in the day, though, there were some on his legs, back, and chest. This was Thursday.

Even on Saturday, he had two bright red ones on his back and some lighter, faded ones still on other spots. It seems that after breaking out in hives, they stick around with him for a while - for at least a few days if not an entire week. Last time we mentioned this to the doctor, he said that isn't really what happens and maybe there was an infection instead. But EVERY time he's broken out in hives lately, that's how it works with him. (And Dr. Google says that can happen. Ok, not just google...I visit reputable sites when I look up this kind of info, folks.) Unfortunately, that Zyrtec he's been on and Benadryl (even combined) seem to do nothing for him. Um, not even make him sleepy. (I mean, come on, if I have to have him on these meds at any time, he could at least experience that side effect and get a good night's rest, right? Nope. Not him.) He also had an allergic reaction while on vacation, and both meds did nothing. And the hives lasted the rest of the week. I feel like I maybe mentioned this in the last post. Vacation post is coming soon. I promise. Sometime being the key word. Soon as I can, though.

The dr that did the egg challenge told us that our regular allergist said just to cancel our follow-up with him scheduled this coming week, since Aiden didn't cooperate with the egg-challenge. But after hearing about this other break-out, the visit is back on. We'll see what he says. We're pretty curious what this really means. Makes me wish the kid had just eaten the stuff so we would know what we're dealing with! Unknowns bug me. Really, I wonder how often this really happens, though, especially with younger children...not wanting to eat the food in question at a challenge. I would imagine it happens pretty regularly. You simply cannot make a toddler eat something he doesn't want to eat!

We'll let you know what we find out.