Allergy Appointment

As mentioned in my last post, Micah had an allergy appointment at Bethesda on Monday.  He definitely reacts to milk (hives around the mouth), and a few weeks ago (maybe back in September?) he ate a cashew that the girls left out and broke out in hives all over his mouth and trunk.  The milk reactions go away fairly quickly and without me needing to give him anything, unless it is actual real milk that he drank because unnamed parties forgot to take their cereal bowls off the table *cough*.  Then I give him a bit of liquid benedryl, and that reaction clears up right away too. I gave benedryl for the cashew, and the hives cleared right up.  He never had any sort of wheezing or anything, so that was good.  But at his last well-baby appointment, the doctor gave me a referral to the allergy clinic.  Anyway, we have been avoiding milk and nuts! 

The appointment was at 1:15, and I should have guessed how long it would take when we had to park on the 8th floor of the parking garage (the top floor), and there was only one elevator working!  I ended up carrying Micah and the stroller down all 8 flights of stairs, since I realized it was going to take approximately forever waiting for the elevator.  Actually, I didn't do it all by myself--I had a ton of offers from kind gentlemen to help, and one guy brought the stroller down a few flights (until I felt bad for him and told him I would just catch the elevator at floor 4--but that was taking forever, so I launched out again), and another guy carried it down the last 2.  Anyhow--a bad omen, LOL. 

One thing that took so long is that since Bethesda is a teaching hospital, we actually saw not 1, not 2, but 3 doctors!  They were all extremely nice, but it does add up!  They decided to do a skin test for casien (a milk protein), milk (with all the proteins), cashews, and peanuts.  I had been giving Micah peanut butter at the beginning of the summer, and he didn't seem to be reacting, but then as the summer wore on, he just got progressively itchier, and his eczema flared up.  I couldn't tell if this was related to the peanut butter or not, but I decided to go back to sun butter anyway.  But that's why they were testing for it.

Micah was a pro throught he testing, most likely due to him having a lollipop to suck on, LOL.  Nothing popped up like Caleb gets--humongous wheals almost instantly--but Micah definitely got wheals for the whole milk and the cashews.  Not the peanut one though, and not the casein, although that is pretty meaningless--we still have to avoid milk!  After we talked to all the doctors again about those results, they sent us off to have some blood drawn for a RAST test.  There they tested for other tree nuts, along with some other stuff.  Some ladies from the pediatrics clinic did the blood draw, and let me just say they were amazing!  Micah didn't like having the rubber tourniquet thing around his arm, but they got the vein on the first try, filled up 3 vials with no problems, and got out of there in a jiffy!  In fact, with both the skin test and the blood draw, Micah behaved considerably better than other members of the family who have had these same things done at older ages *cough*.  It was a 2 lollipop-bag of fruit snacks-bag of teddy grahams afternoon though, LOL. 

The second doctor said he'd call in 2-3 weeks, whenever he gets the blood results back.  I was just glad to get the appointment out of the way before the baby is born!

The only problem with the appointment taking so long is that Nathan was supposed to have his Spanish III class at 3:00 at the McC's house.  Whoops!  And I was in a place where I got no cell coverage, so although he tried to call several times, I could never actually talk to him, and I couldn't make any outgoing calls.  Eventually, when we moved to the blood draw room, I got a small signal and he was able to get through.  By then it was 3:10 (and I obviously hadn't even left yet, LOL), so I told him to call Christine and see if she could come get him.  As soon as I hung up with him, Christine called, wondering where he was, so she headed over to pick him up, thankfully.  I'm so glad we live close by!  The clock was broken in the exam room where we were, and I just lost track of time, as I doled out snack after snack and tried to keep Micah entertained, LOL.  When we finally could leave, the traffic was bad, so we didn't actually get home until 4:30--time to pick up Nathan!  Whew--that was a long day, especially with Rivendell the next day!  But we made it.  The appointment didn't give any real new information, but it is good to have everything documented.  I'm still hoping that since Micah doesn't have as violent a reaction to milk as Caleb did, that he will outgrow his milk allergy a lot earlier than Caleb--like at age 2 instead of age 9!  Anna outgrew her milk allergy at 2, so there is precedent.  In the meantime, I am back in the milk avoidance routine, sign.  It was a lovely 2 year break though!