A is for Anaphylaxis.

In December I gave Reilly a small bite of ice cream, that same night his face broke out in bumps, but he was also being held by a woman with too much perfume on at a Christmas dinner so I didn't put the two together. In January he got another bite, same rash-so.. no more ice cream. A week later he got mash potatoes, which came with a rash all over his face, red eyes, and eventually welts around his eyes.. and a realization that he might be allergic to dairy. We mentioned to his pediatrician and he said that it sounded like a dairy/cow's milk allergy, and also that he was allergic to dogs due to allergic reactions whenever Max (His aunt and uncle's dog) was around, but no other dogs.. weird. He said if he had a reaction again, just give him some benadryl, but wanted to have him tested for any other allergies just to avoid a worse reaction in the future.

A few weeks ago we had him tested, thought we were just confirming a dairy allergy, no big deal. The did a "prick test" which was AWFUL! It included a tray of little pricks of the allergens pressed into his back, about 10 of them. Within minutes the at one point millimeter sized pricks were almost inch long white welts on his back! Ew.. then the doctor returned to confirm that not only was Reilly allergic to dairy, and not allergic to dogs (just Max), he was also allergic to wheat, soy, eggs, and peanuts. Oh my gosh!! So what is he going to eat? Well right now it's very limited.. he pretty much eats vegetables and fruits, oatmeal although it has a "trace of wheat" and a very small amount of baby food meats that don't have any allergens in them. Not going to lie.. this sucks! We'll manage.. but.. it sucks. Fortunately all except for the peanut allergy should go away by the time he is 4, granted we are very strict about not letting him eat any of them. The peanut allergy he will always have, he is not the type that will go into anaphylactic shock if someone opens a jar in the same room as him, but if he eats a peanut containing product, or if someone else does then touches him, then we'd better have the epi pen ready. Yesterday we had his blood work done.. HORRIBLE, thankfully my dad and Rhonda came along because considering how easily I take a needle myself (not very), there was no way I would be able to hold Reilly down while they drew blood from him. The blood work will determine how allergic he is to each thing, and which could be more dangerous.. crossing my fingers that most of them are not that bad and he can still eat one or two. Otherwise.. 3 more years is not that long.

The other good news is, I never knew how easily replaceable some things were in food.. eggs can be replaced with.. not wanting to look it up right now, but vinegar, yeast.. and other stuff. So that's manageable. And we found a lot of cookbooks on the FAAN website for some really good looking stuff! The not so fun news is that cow's milk cannot be replaced with soy milk when we wean him off of nursing, and rice milk is just not as nutritious so his doctor would prefer I keep him on breast milk as "long as I can".. ugh. So my plan is to still wean him from nursing at one and then just pump after that. Absolutely no offense to anyone who continues to nurse after a year, it's just not for me. And the other fun, but not fun news is.. we are THINKING of getting pregnant again sometime in the near/distant future, however.. in order for Reilly to get his milk, which takes 500 calories a day from me, and baby #2 to get it's nutrients, another 300 calories from me.. I'm pretty much going to have to eat a house everyday of my next pregnancy. Which is exciting because I have a real excuse to be fat.. but not exciting because.. ew... fat.

So anyway.. that is the allergy update. Took a while for me to post about it because I couldn't think of a way for it not to sound like something horrible, which.. it really isn't, we just have to make a few adjustments. He is perfectly healthy and happy, which I am thankful for everyday, he just can't eat a few things. And if anything.. it's just one more motivation to make sure he doesn't consume unhealthy or processed foods.