What the hell??
Drum roll, please. The results are in.
The pediatrician just called with the results of Bigfella's allergy tests. For those of you who are hip to the lingo, he had a RAST, not a SPT. For those of you not hip to the allergy scene, he had the less sensitive of the two types of the testing. I don't know the actual numbers, since the doctor who is the allergy specialist is still on vacation, and our pediatrician had laryngitis, and we didn't grill him too much for the details...
...So, for those of you who are interested: a RAST food panel for the top 6 foods, and cats and dogs thrown in for good measure showed:
a mild milk allergy (no surprise there)
a mild egg allergy (kind of expecting it)
a moderate peanut allergy (this is a total shock)
no soy allergy (this is even a bigger shock)
a moderate cat allergy (not a shocker)
a high reaction for dogs (a shock, but my absolute worst fear)
We have three cats and two dogs. Orangedog is perhaps the most important living creature in my life, besides Bigfella (sorry Dyke Two). Orangedog saved my life 10 years ago when I went into a major depression. Orangedog loves Bigfella, and Bigfella loves Orangedog. We already had a plan formulated for the cats and Bigfella living together. We have a sunporch that we can move the cats to, and keep Bigfella away from them. But the dogs. I am seriously sick to my stomach at the thought of finding my dogs a new home.
The peanut allergy hasn't even sunk in. (I also have no plans to reintroduce soy into my diet, since I know we might have had a false negative on the RAST since he hasn't been exposed to soy in months...) I know that epipens are in our future, but the dogs and cats are more of an issue to me right now. I am sure the nuts will be a bigger issue in the long run, and will cause us plenty of angst, but right now, we are still in shock...
posted by Dyke One @ 11:14 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Ok this sucks. I totally understand as I am allergic to pretty much everything. I would get the SPT if possible to confirm. If done right, the dog thing can be mediated. I am sure you are about to do tons of googling on this, but my suggestions would be to:
-wash dogs often (1x a week)
-allerpet your dogs (product that greatly reduces allergens)
-vaccume like crazy
-look into accupunture for Bigfella (my allergies have greatly reduced since doing it for infertility)
-keep the dogs out of bedrooms if possible. I can't remember, are you co-sleeping? If not, definitely out of Bigfella's room.
-reduce all other allergens as much as possible. Will allow him to tollerate more dog.
My worst fear is Logan will be allergic to our cat Sunshine. Obviously cats are easier.
Feel free to pm me if you have any questions. I have totally BTDT.
Ah, damn. We just had this with Wilder -- well, we knew the peanut issue going into things but the dog surprised us. We haven't gotten rid of her, because Wilder's been living mostly symptom free for years (he has so many environmental allergies, who can tell how many of those sniffles are dog-related) and because the dog is old. The calculus all changes when you're dealing with a baby, though. Especially because the baby is going to be crawling and toddling and falling on the hair-covered carpet for a long time.
Targetgirl covers the spread on remediation. Our allergist said the important thing was to create an allergy-free sleep environment, and to bathe every night to get the allergens off the skin.
Good luck. The suckiest thing about the peanuts isn't the peanuts per se -- just serve soynut better and jelly, it's a perfect substitute (although not for adults: we've beens spoiled, so the taste is ookie). The suckiest thing is all the other nuts you have to avoid because of cross-contamination/cross-allergic risk.
My pesto, my pesto.....
(Sure, you can make pine-nut free pesto, and it's probably better for you, but still....)
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