Matthew!
For once in his life, Matthew came out ahead of the food allergies!
Today
was his oral challenge for almonds and he passed with flying colors which means
that he ate all his stuff and didn’t react at all. So his allergist has okayed
almonds and has actually said that it looks like he has dodged the entire tree
nut bullet so she is comfortable letting him have things with a tree nut cross
contamination although she still thinks we should take care with actual nuts,
possibly do food challenges for a few others before we really incorporate them
into his diet, and watch him carefully as he starts to expand his diet.
We
bought him a box of honey nut cheerios this afternoon. He is pretty darn
excited.
And
I’m just relieved. Not only does this put a few things back on the menu, but
all the worst case scenario things that have been running through my mind for
the past few weeks did not actually occur…
For those of you not in the know, there is one specific antibody that causes food allergies. Matthew has enormously high numbers of that antibody which means that he gets a lot of false positives when they try to do blood tests for allergies. Pretty much everything they test for comes back showing numbers that indicate allergy whether or not he is actually allergic. Due to that and a positive skin prick test for cashews several years ago, his allergist advised us to avoid all nuts. But she has been doing skin tests and watching for any sign of allergy to almonds (because he is allergic to milk, being able to eat almonds would make almond milk an option as well as soy) for years. After three years and five negative skin prick tests (the fifth was this morning just to make sure), she felt confident enough that he was not actually allergic to try the oral challenge. So hopefully that helps explain why we have avoided nuts all these years and why we will probably do oral challenges for a few more before we just throw all caution to the wind and say he isn't allergic to tree nuts.
But we'll wait a good while because I don't think Matthew is ready to handle all the stress again right away. And frankly, neither am I.
For those of you not in the know, there is one specific antibody that causes food allergies. Matthew has enormously high numbers of that antibody which means that he gets a lot of false positives when they try to do blood tests for allergies. Pretty much everything they test for comes back showing numbers that indicate allergy whether or not he is actually allergic. Due to that and a positive skin prick test for cashews several years ago, his allergist advised us to avoid all nuts. But she has been doing skin tests and watching for any sign of allergy to almonds (because he is allergic to milk, being able to eat almonds would make almond milk an option as well as soy) for years. After three years and five negative skin prick tests (the fifth was this morning just to make sure), she felt confident enough that he was not actually allergic to try the oral challenge. So hopefully that helps explain why we have avoided nuts all these years and why we will probably do oral challenges for a few more before we just throw all caution to the wind and say he isn't allergic to tree nuts.
But we'll wait a good while because I don't think Matthew is ready to handle all the stress again right away. And frankly, neither am I.
1 comment:
YAY!!!!!
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