The Schwartz's vs the Allergies

So we've been suspicious about Sarah having food allergies for a while now.  The first allergy we actually figured out was peas.  You remember the hives incident right?  But in actuality, the real first allergic reaction was the day Sarah politely waited until we were out of the car before she explosively expelled all the contents of her stomach.  It was a reaction to the eggs, but I didn't figure that out until I took the advice from the comments on the peas post and tested peanuts.  She had the same explosive reaction coupled with some hives around her mouth.  So we figured she was allergic to peanuts and decided to stay away from them as well.

Well, when we were at the dr for Sarah's 16 month appointment she mentioned that "still no honey or peanuts until Sarah's 2".  To which I said, uh oh, we already did peanuts, and we're pretty sure she's allergic.  Then I described the peas, eggs, and peanut reactions we've seen.  So Dr. Catherine said we needed to take Sarah to the allergist.

I was going to get around to taking Sarah to the allergist when I got around to it, until we had another reaction.

This was what happened when I let Sarah have some mustard relish with her ham.  Mustard relish is delicious, but it's also egg based.  This time the reaction happened so fast and it must have itched because she started scratching at her throat and the hives spread to her neck.  She was tired so as she rubbed her eyes the hives spread to there.  This was the first time she spread the hives by touching.  It was a little disturbing.  So I dosed her with Benedryl, washed her down in the sink with Dawn, and kept her up for a little bit to make sure it was working before I let her take a nap.  During her nap, I decided it was best to go ahead and call and schedule that allergist appointment.

The receptionist at the allergist told me the appointment could take up to 4 hours, so Chris decided to take off and come with us.  She did a really good job, but I was glad he was there to help distract her and also to listen to the doctor while I was keeping Sarah from freaking out.  She does really well with her pediatrician, but was not a big fan of the allergist.

Anyway, so the allergist came in and we had the consultation where we described the reactions and to what.  I was smart and brought pictures of the peas and mustard relish.  He was a little perplex about the pea thing and said we could test for that but we'd have to use the adult 32 allergen panel instead of the 6 allergen kiddie panel.  Not wanting to torture Sarah anymore than was necessary we decided on the kiddie test and I'll just assume and NOT feed her peas.  (I don't like them anyway, so no worries here.)  He described the test to us and then left and the nurse came in.  She said it would just feel like a hair brush to Sarah.  But it must have been like a steel needle wire hair brush because she cried a lot.  She calmed down quickly and then was ok while we played and waited for someone to come read the results.

The results must have been really easy to read because 20 minutes later when the nurse came back in the check on us Sarah's back was to the door.  The nurse took one look at her and said "I'll go get the doctor."  He came back and explained the results and told us we'd need an epi pen for the peanut allergy.  He said MOST kids do out grow the egg allergy and as long as she's not having a reaction she can continue to eat pancakes and waffles (she loves them) even though they have eggs in it, but we should probably avoid things like mayo.  But we only have a 20% chance of outgrowing the peanut allergy.  Luckily peanut oil is ok, so we don't have to be crazy anal at restaurants.  In fact he specifically said Chick-fil-a was ok.  Wahoo!  He also said that because she technically showed reactions to everything we need to come back in a month to do a retest without the known allergens (peanuts and eggs).  He was worried there may have been some cross contamination because Sarah's skin is so sensitive.  

So there you have it.  Our sweet baby girl has food allergies even though neither Chris nor I have any.  But she's a trooper and luckily since it's just food it should be easy enough to manage.  At least she didn't inherit my mom's allergies.  She's allergic to pretty much everything outside.