Yikes! Allergies…
It’s been a long time coming… We were told that Andrew’s eczyma may be allergy-related, and that he needs to be tested. We had to wait until he got a little older before actually doing the allergy test, since we were told that it’s more accurate after he passes the 12-month mark. The allergist wanted to do a skin test to see how Andrew would react to some common allergens. As you can see in the photos above, it was quite an ordeal… They write on his back to identify the test substance, then poked him with little picks with different substances on them. See below for some explainations.
(H) Histamine [control] Everyone should react to this… this is the positive control.
(E4) Dust Mild reaction – looks like we’re be vacuuming more!
(F8) Shrimp/Shellfish Medium reaction. How sad… both of Andrew’s parents are seafood lovers…
(F2) Eggs Medium reaction. What?!? No more eggs in the fried rice?
(F1) Peanuts Strong reaction! Sigh… now we have to read every label on every food!
Sidebar: When the nurse wrote down “4″ next to “Peanut” on the chart (an indication of the strength of the reaction), I was a little relieved. I figured 4 out of 10 isn’t bad and 4 out of 5 is still not the end of the world, so I asked her what the scale was. She said, “Oh, that’s 4 out of 4.” Dammit!
Some things Andrew is NOT allergic to (yet):
Cat/dog dander
Milk
Soy
Grass
Mold
The good news is that kids sometime grow out of their allergies. The bad news is that they rarely grow out of peanut allergies. Also, kids who are predisposed to allergies usually become sensitive to more and more things as they get older. We’ll change our ways and hope for the best, and in the meantime, it looks like more regular doctor’s visits for Andrew!
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hey there -
i was allergic to apples and tomatoes as a kid, but grew out of those. then i was allergic to shellfish for awhile (from 17 onwards) but tested negative at my last test. Food allergies can suck…remember to keep alot of variety in his diet, so that future allergies don’t develop.
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Comment by Anonymous — December 30, 2007 @ 7:52 AM