Symptoms and Levels

Food Allergies are confusing. There is so much information out there and I still don't fully understand everything.  There are so many symptoms out there and no magic pill to cure it, yet.  Aiden will get a diaper rash from Soy.  He'll break out in hives from Dairy and he'll go into an anaphylaxis shock from Peanuts and Eggs. 


Food Allergy symptoms: 
-Hives
-Itchiness 
-Skin Rash
-Sneezing
-Runny Nose
-Itchy Watery Eyes
-Nasal Congestion
-Asthma or shortness of breath
-Swelling of the Mouth, Toungue or throat
-Vomiting
-Diarrhea 
-Mucus in BM
-Diaper rash

I learned that if your total IgE levels are high, the RAST test is almost always inconclusive.  Also, the skin test has many false positives and false negatives.

Many people don't even know they have food allergies and live their entire lives eating foods that can possibly kill them.  My allergist told me that if I (or anyone) got tested for food allergies, there might be some foods that I am allergic to but my body knows how to handle them every time I consume that food and therefore I never see a reaction.  It would be interesting to get tested and see for myself, but I'd rather not know.

IgE    kU/L        Level of Allergen
0      <0.35          Absent/Undetectable
1      0.35-0.70    Low Level
2      0.71-3.50    Moderate Level
3      3.51-17.5    HighLevel
4      17.6-50       Very High Level
5      51-100        Very High Level
6      >100           Very High Level

Aiden will be tested again in February.  The anxiety is beginning to build.

I love him

Epipen injection

I was driving home yesterday at 3:30pm and when I hit traffic (about a mile or two from home) I looked at my phone and noticed I had 4 missed calls, 2 from my nanny and 2 from my husband.  I called my husband's cell (strange that he wasn't at work) and he started freaking out why I don't answer my phone. He yelled that the nanny had to give our son the epipen. My heart sank and my pregnant belly began to cramp and I went into the ugly cry.

I get on the emergency lane and pass the traffic and pray a cop doesn't pull me over. If one does, I will pray for pity. I get home about five minutes after the call and my nanny still wasn't home. My husband is another 5 minutes away.  I called the nanny and she said she's walking him back from the playground now.  I gather my diaper bag and some other stuff so that we can take him to the ER when they and my husband gets here.

I see my nanny speed walking with the stroller and she clearly was shaken up. Aiden was just dazed and confused with boogers all over his face and dry tears.  When he saw me and I picked him up I though he was going to choke me from squeezing my neck so tight. He would not let me go.  She showed me the used epi pen and Aiden imminently started saying "no no no no."

So this is what happened... My nanny takes Aiden to the playground behind a kindergarten school. They were playing with another little girl and her nanny (our neighbors) and the little girl started eating something from the ground and Aiden followed. My nann said he swallowed some stuff before she noticed anything and then she noticed popcorn on the ground and some in his mouth. She noticed his face getting a massive rash around his mouth so the other nanny started telling my nanny to take Aiden into the school where there was a nurse (there is a summer program in progress).  The nurse wanted to give him benadryl but my nanny wasn't sure if he could have it, even though it's all over my house and I always mention to her that he always has benadryl, so my nanny and the nurse watched him for a few minutes and his face was getting worse. His face began to swell and since he did ingest something they were afraid he might go into shock and the nurse advised my nanny to give him the epipen.  She did and his skin imminently cleared up and they watched him for a few minutes and headed home.

We took him to the ER and everyone, including Aiden's pediatrician, the ER pediatrician, my allergist all said that she did the right thing. Thankfully she has watched the epipen video in the past and we have had many conversations about it. But better be safe than sorry. If she has doubts -give the epipen.

Later that night my husband went back to the park to look for the popcorn but there was nothing. The evidence was gone.  I'm curious what kind of popcorn was it and what other food, if any, did he eat.  A few people told me that some popcorn is made in peanut oil.  Scary.

I hate food allergies. They suck and they are ruining our lives.  I'm exhausted from the worrying and I'm tired of seeing my nanny's number come up on my phone because I imminently think something happened.   I have a fear of "THAT CALL" and I'm so scared for the future.

I can't imagine what would have happened if he was eating peanuts and she didn't notice. It was a wake up call for everyone and hopefully there are no more incidents like this.

Bye bye sesame!

Farewell! Bye! Adios! Ja ne! Bis Dann! Ciao! Dowidzenia! Peace! 

oh wait!  Good bye sesame and hello sesame, we can actually have stuff with tahini and not freak out now.

Hello, Hi, Hola, Czesc, Welcome, aloha..

Aiden outgrew his sesame allergy! yay!  and we are slowly kicking milk and soy in the butt too.  I am so happy!  For a long time we though he was allergic to tomatoes, chicken, beef, fish, beans and so many other things.  It still doesn't explain the breakout he had when he tried Pollack fish but we'll give it another try again soon and hopefully it was just his Polish skin being super sensitive (as my Polish allergist said).

We found this awesome allergist and finally had new tests done. He was tested for almost everything we could have thought of and the results were.. Drum roll..

Sesame -gonzo! 

Milk - super duper low levels

Soy - soy who? Almost gone

Eggs - you mother f*cker! Hate you more than you can imagine.  (Levels almost quadrupled)

Peanuts - Die die die die die! That’s all I have to say to you! 

No other allergy found -yay!  So we only have to worry about egg and peanuts.  Hopefully by next year his egg allergy will start disappearing and we are only stuck with one, which hopefully will one day disappear also -a girl can dream.

So what's up with the gagging whenever he has meat, beans and other things? Or the rashes that he gets from some foods?  He's Polish and ridiculously sensitive. In other words -he has my skin.  Someone will touch me and I get a black and blue. If I get mad, I look like I'm a tomato and I get this awesome looking rash all over my chest.  The gagging is because he hates meat. I don't blame him -it really is gross. That's my boy!!!!!!!!! 

Since getting the results we have expanded our food options for him. He eats veggies!!!!! I realized he will eat probably any vegetable if it's mixed in with avocado and offered on a chip. In a guacamole dish ONLY.  yeah, he's weird like that.  But who cares, he's eating and loving every bite. 

Here is my little boy being completely awesome. 

And yes, his ears ARE this big! Again, after his mommy

Fish, Chicken, Beef, Beans, Avocados..

...Those might be Aiden's new allergies. I am not a happy Mommy right now..  He has these two massive blisters on his head which is a result of a reaction.  I have been giving Aiden Bisque pancakes for a while now and I guess I forgot to check the ingredients after we realized he's also allergic to Soy because there are Soybeans in the ingredients. I've been getting the yellow box, instead of the white box which is soy free.  I don't know how that's possible because I check EVERYTHING and I have no clue how I missed the ingredients on that box.  He didn't eat much and I always though he just didn't like pancakes, but what kid doesn't like pancakes? Well, it probably bothered him. 

As soon as I offer meat to him he acts like its poison so I stopped since it possibly IS poison to him. When I give him beans he spits them out, sometimes gags, and makes weird faces.  Again, might be bothering him.  Avocados just seem to always give him tummy problems and a rash.  I am pretty sure that he is allergic to fish, maybe not all fish, but definitely Pollack fish.  We offered it to him this past weekend and he had a rash on his face, neck and body. Lovely.

Can this child catch a break and just have a regular slice of pizza like all the other kids? Fine, he doesn’t need pizza, but damn it –stop it with all the new allergies. 

We are going to see a new allergist on March 4^th and I am super anxious!  An hour doesn’t go by that I do not think about the appointment.  I imagine having his blood work come back and the results all show that he outgrew everything and then I snap back into reality and realize that he has these massive blisters on his head which is a confirmation that he still has reactions.

I thought all of this would get easier.  Feeding him does gets easier but everything else does not.  Having family over is overwhelming. Last time we had a few family members over, one of them took out a peanut butter sandwich while my son was a few feet away. I was lost for words. I know kissing him is not allowed but I still see the same person that had the peanut butter sandwich kiss him way too close to the lips.  It sounds so selfish and rude to tell people NOT to kiss him and not to bring food into our house, but I would rather be the bitch of the family than have a dead child.  Sometimes I just want to scream. Sometimes I do.  I have seen people roll their eyes at me and make faces, but they just don’t get it. I don’t think they ever will.  We are making new rules and they will be known. No one is allowed to feed our child, this way he will learn that all food has to come from Mommy or Daddy. No kisses on the face. I am teaching him how Eskimos kiss and how to blow kisses.  I just don’t want someone else's lips on my child’s face.  I can see how that can sound to a person that never dealt with allergies, but to me, it sounds like a I’m saving my sons life. 

My oh so yummy Rice Puddiing

 

Aiden hates anything fancy. If i add some delicious spices to his food he will not eat it. But if it's plain and yummy, he will devour it.

This rice pudding cannot be any simpler to make and it has NO added sugar -oh yeah.

1 1/4 cup of (rice) milk
1 cup of white minute rice
(may need to add a tad more milk)
Sprinkle cinnamon

That's it. yup. now that's simple.

Yesterday I went even further. I added 2 Tbs of Almond butter, crushed rice krispies, steamed pureed broccoli and carrots. Mixed together.  Made little balls and coated them in rice krispies (semi-crushed). Baked for 10 minutes at 300. 

He has a ton of protein (almond butter), calcium (broccoli and milk) and a ton of vitamins.  Can I get a gold star now?  Days like this makes me want to dance around the house screaming he ate it! he ate it!

Statistics and more

The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) website states that you are at risk of allergies if there is any family history of asthma.  No one on my husband’s fathers side has asthma, that I know of, and I have never met anyone on his mother’s side, so there could be someone, or not.   Now my family is another story. My mother takes asthma inhalers and her mother has severe asthma, my grandfather will not survive another year due to his asthma but he is not my biological grandfather.  Does it count that they are chain smokers and probably could have easily avoided having asthma?  Is this considered family history?  When my mom quit smoking for four months she did not have to use her inhaler once, her asthma disappeared.  She began smoking again because she was gaining too much weight and started having asthma attacks shortly after.  Do I consider their asthma as hereditary or not?

The only food allergy that I am aware of from me or my husband is that my husband was allergic to strawberries when he was a toddler, but that’s it, at least that is the only thing I am aware of.

90% of all food allergies are Cow’s Milk, Eggs, Peanuts, Tree Nuts, Fish, Shellfish, Soybeans, and Wheat.  Aiden is allergic to 4 of the 8 major allergens. In addition, he’s allergic to sesame and possibly apples.

On the CDC website, it says “food allergies cause 30,000 cases of anaphylaxis, 2,000 hospitalizations, and 150 deaths annually.” –scary!  

In 2007, Four out of 100 children have a food allergy.  That is an 18% increase from 1997. After looking at all the charts, 2006 was the biggest increase, almost doubled.  I would love to see the 2010 statistics.  

I think I need to give myself a break and stop reading so much because I'm starting to scare myself.  I am hopeful that Aiden will outgrow all of them but I'm also trying to be realistic and know that there is a huge possibility that he will continue with a few of his allergies for many years to come, if not forever. 

This week I read about a 7 year old boy who suffered two heart attacks after a substitute teacher hands him chocolate that had a nut in it. (here is the story) And how am I suppose to feel safe with putting my child into a school? really? I want to stop reading about all these sad incidents, but I think I need to so that I can be aware of what can happen.  

And to brighten up the post. I made these incredibly delicious cookies for Aiden this week which I ate most of them.  I had to alter the recipe and use coconut yogurt and a special butter, but it worked. The recipe is here.

 

Symptoms

Every time I look at my son’s pictures from when he had an outbreak I get very upset with myself for not automatically knowing it’s an allergy. It was so obvious from his swollen eye, his rashes and all the itchiness. I don’t understand why I did not make the connection and why it took me and my husband 7 months to really get to the root of it.

He still gets an outbreak from time to time, a mild one. I honestly think there is an additional allergy lurking around in my diet but I can’t figure out what it can be.

I think every parent needs to be very cautious and watch out for the most common symptoms…

~ Itching
~ Rash / Hives
~ Swelling
~ Wheezing
~ Abdominal pain
~ Blood in diaper

That's not all of them, but the most common ones. We saw the top three constantly. Aiden is still very itchy, especially on his birthmark on his neck but a world of difference