Allergy stuff updates.....

Well, for those of you that don't know, Taylor's allergies seem to have disappeared! All the doctors were right I guess, they told us she'd outgrow them around age three at the latest. Leave it to my kid to wait all the was until she was three! In fact, six months earlier, she was still reacting to milk, so this is monumental. She has been enjoying all sorts of new foods, ice cream being her absolute favorite - banilla (aka - vanilla) is her current favorite. She really dislikes mint chocolate chip, leaving me to wonder of she is really my daughter. How can anyone dislike mint chocolate chip? Actually now, that I think about it, she doesn't seem to really like chocolate in general. Some chocolate ice cream was in her bowl along with her banilla the other day and she wouldn't eat it, said it was "dirty". Then at Target last week, she picked out some M&M's as a treat and spit them all out in a gross multi-colored mess. Oh well, more for me!! Anyway, that's Taylor's update!!

Erin - well, she has been a bit more difficult to figure out all these months. Her reactions have always been so much harder to see. She doesn't get the typical "yucky diaper" like Taylor did, or the lovely throwing up, she just starts to lose weight. SO, per her doctors orders, she has never had wheat, eggs, soy, or dairy...pretty much everything. Feeding this child has not been fun. So, she saw an allergist last week and he was the same guy we saw when Taylor was 7 months old. I didn't like him then, and I don't really like him now. Anyway, just to back up a second.....when we could not figure out what the heck Taylor was allergic to, we gave her skin patch testing which is basically putting smooshed up food on the back, covering it up, and seeing if a poison ivy type of rash appears. This was new to the allergist office for food (been used a lot for environmental allergy testing) and they were not sure if would work for Taylor because she was on steroids at the time. They did the test anyway and her positive reactions were VERY positive despite the steroids. In fact, they took pictures and had every single doctor in the office come in to look. They had never seen so many strong positives. Again, leave it to Taylor, haha. So, I was hoping to get this testing for Erin as well, but jerko allergist guy didn't think it was appropriate for her based on "her typical reactions". She doesn't vomit so the test wasn't that great for her. I am in the camp of thinking "how can it hurt"? but he wouldn't do it. He did do the skin prick testing, but that was negative (always was for Taylor too) just to make sure there weren't any IGE related allergies (aka - "real" allergies). Another side note, we did NOT see him when Taylor got her testing, it was a PA that we really liked, but has since left. So we left there with instructions to give her peanut butter and then other foods and see how she did. I smiled, thanked him and thought to myself "Is this guy flippin (ok - I didn't really think flipping, but trying to keep it clean) crazy?? PEANUT BUTTER for a one year old??"

So, I get home later and am trying to decide what food to give her a try on, when I accidentally gave her soy flour - oops. Well, she did fine! Then, after a few days, I accidentally gave her wheat (yeah - bad week reading labels). Again, she was FINE!! Wheat particularly shocked me because she had always had such a horrible reaction to wheat when I would eat it when I was nursing her. Go figure. Anyway, since then, she has had wheat bread, pasta, and waffles. She has had most of these things, but made with special flour that costs an arm and a leg! Oh - she had normal pretzels too. This made me very happy since she LOVES pretzels and the wheat free kind I have been having to buy her were $6 for a smallish bag! yeah - gluten free food is ridiculously expensive!!! $5 for a small loaf of rice bread that is only edible if you toast it - lol.

Anyway, that's where we're at. I suppose we'll try egg with Erin next, dairy is last since it's the most common allergen. Not that that means anything with my kids - again, Taylor's strongest reaction was to RICE which is almost unheard of.

I wonder when all of this is said and done, I will ever stop reading labels - ha! It's such a habit everytime I shop. I also can't wait to just go out to eat or to a birthday party and not have to bring our own special food. The little things.....