Emily's RAST results. Finally.

Taytee

We had Emily's RAST testing done I don't know how many months ago at Dr K ay ser's office. We had abitch of a time getting in and they never called us to tell us the results were back.(insert regret at not listening to nesties) I had to call them 5 weeks later and then the only appts they had were months away. Both were days DH and I already had surgeries scheduled for and of course they wouldn't give me any info by phone. I asked Tree house and Chang to help me get the results at least and we could review if Emily even needed further intervention.

All debates about RAST testing at her age aside, she has a Level 3 allergy to Egg Whites and Peanut. So I was not imagining things when I saw her break out in hives from exposure to them. She responded well to ample doses of Benadryl but suffice to say, I just have to pray we never have to use her EpiPen. She also has a Level 2 allergy to Egg Yolk and Hazelnuts???. Level 1 (lowest) results on most of the rest of the tree hanging nuts like pecans etc. She did not test positive for dairy but I've always considered that more of an intolerance as it only ever exacerbated her eczema. Not so surprisingly, Emily does not have eczema signs and symptoms when we are vigilant about keeping dairy(and egg) out of her diet. She was given pecans once and the 2nd time she reacted .

I'm going to give it all a couple weeks to set in before I decide what we're going to do next. She didn't have too many issues with enviromental allergies over the winter. A constant runny nose, yes. But it only caused 2 ear infections and I don't know if that's worth putting her through the misery of skin testing. I've been keeping egg, dairy and nuts out of her diet for almost a year now so it's no big deal. I do hope and pray she can someday enjoy real cheese because soy cheese blows. 

Suffice to say I feel pretty vindicated in my decision to delay many of her vaccinations. Especially the flu shot. I had said before that I'd rather her get the flu than have a severe reaction having egg protein injected into her body. Time to dust off "The Vaccine Book" and "Food Allergies in Babies and Children" that m_and_m loaned me oh so long ago. I'm still not going to get give her MMR until I research it further. I see where the AAP says it's all good but I want to hear/read 1st hand experiences of things being "OK".

Sorry for the marathon posts lately!

m_and_m

I'm glad y'all have some answers, but sucktastic to have to worry about it. How severe are the allergies? IE, does she need to be in a peanut-free and/or egg-free environment?

SarahPLiz

Interesting. So is it just egg yolk? If you made something with just egg whites in it, would it be ok? 

 And yes, she needs real cheese. Everyone needs real cheese.  

OrangeFelt

Can we desensitize her to real cheese somehow?? Maybe start her gentile with yogurt next year. :P

 

 

thethomps

I'm sorry she has an egg and peanut allergy.    Food allergies suck (from personal experience).  And I don't think soy cheese is all that bad, but it's been a looooong time since I've had cow cheese.  Is she just allergic to cow's milk?  As in, could she have goat or sheep cheese?  Thankfully, I can eat both of those.  But I miss real ice cream sometimes!

Taytee:

I'm still not going to get give her MMR until I research it further. I see where the AAP says it's all good but I want to hear/read 1st hand experiences of things being "OK".

Is the MMR vaccine grown in eggs like the flu vaccine?  

 

MrsBeckO

Cam's skin test was not miserable by any stretch of the defintion. She was more angry that I was holding her still for 1-2 minutes (if that!) than she was in pain. She stopped squirming fussing as soon as they were done, never truly cried, and was perfectly conten cruising around the room topless as we waited for the welts/measurements. Easy. Peasy. Sprayed a little Benadryl on our way out, the end. Just wanted to let you know that it's not so bad. And I'm super glad we had it done.
Sorry about the food allergies, but good job following your Mommy instinct!

Taytee

Thank you BeckO! It does make me feel better. I wasn't sure how long it took for them to place and prick etc. When I had it done awhile back it felt like forever.

Apparently from what I can tell the MMR contains chick cells (fibroblasts?) but not the egg protein, She's allergic to the protein in the whites more than the yolks but not chickens I'm not willing to dabble in cooked vs uncooked eggs or eggs "in" things. We'll just leave it out for now.

As for contact - at this age, we just need to make sure she doesn't have access to it. As she gets older she will probably outgrow both the dairy and egg but she only has a 9% chance of outgrowing her tree nut allergy and a 20% of not ruining PB&J for the rest of the class.

Severity - Pretty severe from what the nurse could tell me on the phone. She was like "I called you as soon as I saw this so you'd know". Again - need to read up more on it. I'm not sure when she was exposed if she got hives from peanuts or pecans. She ate pecans and then was also at the learning tower where DH had given Abby PB and crackers (He didn't think it mattered if Abby smeared some on the counter...)

MrsBeckO

A little more detail for ya.. After a consult with the allergist to decide what to test for, the nurse came in and drew #s and lines on Cam's back, which Cam found amusing. Then she left to prepare the sticks and came in with a numbered tray with all the sticks. They did it to me first with a blank to show me what it felt like.. Annoying but not painful IMO. Then I held Cam on my lap facing me and hugged around her neck/shoulders to keep her still and her arms down. That's what ticked her off. The nurse was super quick about "scratching" on the appropriate lines, and for about a dozen sticks (maybe 15?) she was done in less than 2 minutes, tops. Then we waited. The nurse came in at 5min intervals to peek and they both came in at 15 mins (I think) to measure. That was that. Benadryl spray and a consult with the dr about the results. Done.

Taytee

Oh see, when I had it done in middle school, it was my entire back. Dozens of them. I still have the results somewhere. They tested 5 different kinds of grasses. At least 30+ test spots. Maybe a many as 50. Some of them they just applied and others they scratched the skin with a needle too. So some of them might have been duplicates.

espana21

We had my daughter skin tested for the 32 most common allergens and it also wasn't bad at all.  She was only 6 months so I was able to nurse to calm her down but she was fine within minutes and just waited not long for the results.  So glad I did since ours turned out to be strawberries which I probably wouldn't have figured out easily (and was thankfully so easy to cut out of my diet).  Here is her back following hers-the biggest spot was the histamine reaction. 

SareBear30

I'm glad you got confirmation on your mommy gut. FWIW, a friend of mine who is lactose intolerance recently realized that she could have goat and sheep cheese, and now feels like she has a whole new world open to her. The egg and nut thing is no bueno though. I keep hoping they will come up with some treatments for food allergies soon. Sorry you are dealing with this but glad you know what to avoid!

carlinlp

I sent ya an email, hope it went to the right address

kiarox2002

Taytee:

Oh see, when I had it done in middle school, it was my entire back. Dozens of them. I still have the results somewhere. They tested 5 different kinds of grasses. At least 30+ test spots. Maybe a many as 50. Some of them they just applied and others they scratched the skin with a needle too. So some of them might have been duplicates.

When they did my skin test, I think they tested for 100 things.  It wasn't the most fun thing in the world, but it wasn't awful.  Mainly I was itchy.  When I talked to Dr T about doing a skin test for Kate, I'm pretty sure he said that they would pick 10 or 15 things and only test them.