Info.

Well nothing really all that interesting to post so I figured I'd do some research and put it here. Plus tell my story of the doctor appts that led up to allergy testing.

Today boys and girls, I want to talk about the different types of allergic reactions.

Some people have the very serious anaphylaxis reactions. Where their throats close up and they can't breathe. These are very serious and so these are also the main ones you ever read about.

Then there are the more common ones.

Skin reactions. Hives, redness of body parts (Gabe always has his face/ears/hands/feet). Itchiness is common as well as eczema. These can be around for long periods of time. Gabe's face would get red and hives that would go away within a day or so, but the red hands/ears were always around took upwards of a month to get out of his system totally. Also the eczema can last for long periods of time. Now from what I have learned, eczema it's self is not caused by allergies, but it is exacerbated by it. So if you have a tendency for dry skin, for example, it might turn into eczema when exposed to food allergies. Also some people get pimples and blemishes from food allergies.

GI reactions Gastrointestinal. This is the lovely puking, pooping, stomach cramps, gas, heartburn and just general bad belly problems. (btw after now having suffered from these and the skin reactions I claim these to be the absolute worst!) Some doctors say that GI reactions can last up to a week. (mine were 3 days)

Topical reactions are when you can digest the food just fine, but skin contact causes a reaction. When Gabe eats strawberries, the next day he will wake up with blisters where ever they touched the skin around his mouth.

Behavioral reactions. If you have ever seriously considered having your kid tested for ADD or ADHD look into doing allergy testing too! You wouldn't believe how many people act up because of food allergies!

Now you might ask why I'm doing this? Well looking back on Gabe as a baby I KICK myself that we did not realize all the minor symptoms he had and get him to an allergist right away. I love my ped very much. He is WONDERFUL and very intelligent, but he is a pediatrician NOT an allergist. Peds are NOT trained to know that much about allergies!!!!! (this is not true for all, but for most) And when Gabe was a baby he would projectile vomit when I breastfed him. Normally about 1 time a day. So then we switched to formula, and that went away, but after about a month (some allergies have to build up and straight protein is different than the ones in breast milk) he started having diarrhea, so our doctor told us to try soy. THAT caused bloody diarrhea! So my ped sent us for a blood allergy test. All of it came back negative. So we assumed he was not allergic to anything, just that his system was immature and couldn't handle the proteins. Switched to nutramigen formula and the problems stopped. Now right here an allergist would have told us that blood tests are hit or miss. For some people they are great tools for others they don't work at all. And most allergists would have recommended either a prick test OR avoiding top 8 when introducing solid foods.

So Gabe did ok with the nutramigen AND our insurance covered it!!!!! WOOT! If you have to put your child on a special formula beg your doctor for a prescription and call your insurance company! AND ask for a supervisor! Most of the lower downs don't know that formula can be covered because (in our insurance company and in at least 1 other) it's done by a separate department. So we introduced solids. He would always puke after having sweet potatoes. (doctor said it was high acidity probably, turns out now they had soy oil in them) Then the poor kid got HORRIBLE eczema all over his legs and butt and back. We were told it was a normal thing. Also we were told about the trilogy. Eczema, asthma and allergies. If you have one, chances go up that you will have one or both of the others, but again they just said look out for it.

THEN Gabe had his first reaction to Keflex. Took 7 days of being on the antibiotic then suddenly one night he was crying soooo hard. We called the doc and they said it sounded like exhaustion. Ok so we finally get him to sleep. In the morning he woke up covered head to toe in hives. Turns out he's allergic. Then a few months later he goes on another antibiotic Amoxicillin. Suddenly his legs are hot and red and slightly swollen. Doctor tells me that there are NO tests for antibiotic allergies. (not entirely true. We now know that he was reacting to the meds because they are distant cousins {synthetic derivatives} of penicillin which you CAN test for by testing for the mold penicillium. An allergist would have known that). W are told that it's rare but some kids react to a lot of different meds. I now panic anytime we have to have an antibiotic in the house. (oh and our younger son Lincoln has had the same reaction as Gabe did to Keflex to Augmentin blah)

Now at this point with looking at this kids history, you would think they would say hey, go to an allergist. Right? Nope! And we were idiots who thought our peds knew all. (and unfair assumption) It took until after xmas when I gave Gabe a bite of peanut butter and about an hour later he had a few hives, then later that day it was his whole mouth. I wasn't sure if it was the peanut butter or something else so we just kept an eye out. I mean he'd been eating PB for over a year at this point! Then a few weeks later he had 1 bite of my peanut butter sandwich and the same thing happened and so we decided to test it and sure enough at 1 hour he had 2 hives, at 6 his face was all red and he had about 6 hives, and 12 hours later his whole face was covered in hives. Literally that's how fast it went. From being able to eat anything this crazy reaction after 1 PB sandwich, 1 bite of mine and then 1 teaspoon for the test! His body had just finally had it with the allergens.

So at this point our ped FINALLY said, you should see an allergist. Before we could get into the doc though his reactions got to the point that it was hives all over his entire face and rashes ALL over his body!!!! And it went from a few times, to ever couple of days to EVERY SINGLE DAY! We had to do the restriction diet which was awful! And that's when we started the whole crazy allergy testing process. The blood work was negative for everything. So then we did the prick test which gave us results for the molds, the pollens, the cat fur, corn, wheat and egg. They don't test for nuts on a prick test and because he has delayed reactions to soy that one came back negative at the time. He later ended up in the ER that night because of it. :( Also they didn't test for strawberries, but we did a trial and error with that one. You know we spent sooo much time last summer thinking he had impetigo or cold sores! SOOOO many visits to the doctor! And nothing ever helped. He hasn't had a strawberry in over a month and magically he hasn't had a single one since!

Anyways this has been our long journey with doctors. I just wanted to share. Maybe someone can get some use out of it.