Today was Matthew’s annual trip to the allergist. These visits have become pretty routine for us. We do the blood draw, go to the office, confirm that he’s still allergic to everything, get refills on all his prescriptions, and call it good until next year. So I knew how this year’s appointment would go based on the past seven years…at least I thought I knew how this year’s appointment would go.
When our allergist walked into the room, she seemed anxious to get right down to business, something that didn’t surprise me based on the fact that she is very good and therefore very busy. But the reason for being ready to get down to business was not anxiety or a need to hurry, it was excitement. She whipped out the results of his blood work and proceeded to tell me that with the exception of peanut, Matthew’s IgE (the antibody that causes food allergies) levels have all fallen in the past year. And we’re not talking dropping a few points (a little variation is common and inconsequential), we’re talking half of what they were last year.
I honestly never even considered the fact that his numbers might go down. We discovered he was having problems when he was five months old and in all that time they have either risen or stayed the same. So today was completely unexpected. When the doctor started reading off the numbers, I actually cried. I haven’t cried in her office since our second visit when she listed everything Matthew was allergic to, gave me a huge list of things we needed to avoid, and taught me how to use the Epipens.
This came as a complete surprise to all of us, our doctor included. When Matthew was two and his IgE totals had doubled over the past year, she told us that he probably wouldn’t grow out of it. As they continued to rise over the next couple of years, she came to the conclusion that he definitely wouldn’t outgrow it. Today she actually told us that she was losing hope that things would improve for him. She was visibly excited today because based on his bloodwork and the results of his skin prick tests, she thinks he might be able to tolerate eggs in baked goods. He is still too allergic to be able to eat plain eggs or have them in other than baked goods (the high temperatures of baking break down the proteins making them less likely to cause problems), but even just that would mean a lot of foods could come back into his diet. So we will be scheduling another oral food challenge when Matthew goes off-track in December. The food challenges scare him to death, but having done three, all of which have gone well and added numerous foods to his safe list, he is totally on board with doing another one.
As Kev and I have pondered why such a dramatic change after years of stasis, we think that it might be the food challenge Matthew did earlier this year that put milk in breads back into his diet. He’s been eating bread with milk in it regularly for the past six months and we wondered if having an allergen in a form that is safe for him is helping his body learn to manage them better. We don’t know for sure, of course, even the allergist doesn’t know for sure, but we have a feeling that the milk in his diet has been a good thing.
The actual food challenge is a hurdle we've yet to jump, but regardless of how it turns out, this year's appointment has given me something very important: hope.
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