Today
was Matthew’s annual visit to the allergist. You might think that once
allergies are established that nothing is going to change but that is not so,
hence the yearly visit. New this year was a blood test that tests an individual’s
allergic response to separate proteins in an item rather than just the allergic
response to an item as a whole. Appropriately, this is called component
testing. This kind of test is relatively new, just a year or so old. The
benefit is that there are certain proteins within the peanut (or whatever else)
that are more likely to cause severe allergic reactions while others are less
likely to cause real problems. So a person who is allergic to the milder
reacting proteins is more likely to be able to eat a certain food without real
problems. This year his allergist opted to do peanut component testing just to
see if there was any chance that he was allergic to the nicer proteins.
There
was good news and bad news as far as Matthew’s blood work goes. First the bad. The
peanut component test tests five different proteins: the first three are the
bad ones that pretty much cause anaphylaxis and the last two are better
proteins that don’t cause as much trouble. Not surprisingly, Matthew is highly
allergic to the first three proteins and only very mildly allergic to the last
two. So no to ever getting away from the peanut allergy.
Now
the good. Matthew’s results for milk actually went down which is a first for
him. His doctor was encouraged by that so she decided to do skin prick testing
for both whole milk and casein (one of the proteins in milk). He still had a
pretty bad reaction to whole milk but his reaction to casein was very mild.
What that means is that he may be able to tolerate small amounts of milk in
baked goods such as bread and crackers. He is still far too allergic to have plain
milk or even milk in things like soup, but there is potential for a purchased
hamburger bun or some such. So we are planning on doing a food challenge for
milk in baked goods sometime in December. When I talked to Matthew about it he
was completely on board with the whole idea. Being able to eat almonds after
his food challenge last year has brought a bunch of new food into his diet and
it has been a great thing for him. In fact, when we can find ones that don’t
have peanut cross contamination warnings, Matthew really likes roasted and
salted almonds. So fingers crossed for the milk test. We also have a food
challenge to coconut milk in the future. I’m not sure when, but adding coconut
milk to his diet would give us a substitute to whipped cream, something I have
not been able to find.
And
the ugly. There really isn’t an ugly except for the fact that we are dealing
with the whole food allergy thing at all. And we’ve been doing it for so long
that is has just become an everyday kind of thing for us. But it was a catchy
title and I couldn’t resist. :-)
Other
than that, things were pretty much the same. He is still highly allergic to
eggs and peas and he also tested positive for allergies to cashews and new this
year, pistachios. Every year we explore a few different nuts so cashew has been
on his list for a while. This is the first time we have tested for pistachio so
that one is new although I’m never surprised when a new nut gets added to the
list.
So
the allergy saga continues…it’s one of those stories that will be a lifelong
one for Matthew.
