Since the beginning of February Bacon has had 4 ear infections: 1 in Feb., 2 in March and 1 in May. It’s been getting VERY FRUSTRATING!!! We had to cut our vacation short in March because he was throwing up and had an ear infection. He was throwing up from the medicine too and had to eat M&M’s just to get the medicine down. We had to meet with his pediatrician 2 weeks after the last one just to make sure the medicine worked and the infection actually went away. *sigh*
I had posted on facebook my frustrations and a friend suggested going to the allergist. He had a lot of ear infections as a child and said allergies was the cause. I decided I was going to try everything because I AM TIRED OF EAR INFECTIONS AND DOCTOR VISITS!!! So I made an appointment with the same allergist Pickle goes to.
Yesterday was the visit and it was very informative. We talked for a bit and she felt all Bacon’s symptoms pointed to environmental allergies. She also said food testing the 6 major groups minus the peanuts (milk, wheat, eggs, fish, peanuts and soy) would be good. Then because of Pickle’s tree nut allergies she wanted to test all those individually. This would all be done by skin testing.
If you have never had or know what skin testing for allergies is, I’ll explain to you what they do and then you will know exactly how much “fun” it isn’t.
1) The doctor pulls out a sheet of paper and marks all the items she wanted tested. Each item is in a category and has is number within that category.
2) The nurse comes in with the list and first cleans the back (for children) with rubbing alcohol. (not so fun). Next she looks at the list and with a pen, marks up the back with all the numbers for each item to be tested. She starts with the first category on the left side of the paper and works her way down and over. She adds a spot for the control positive and negative. Bacon did ok with that. He was laughing and moving around the whole time. I thought that was nice because he was about to hate life….
3) After all the marking is done, she pulls opens up the trays of testers. Each tray has 4 to 5 rows of tiny little needle with a plastic handle and organized by category and number, which corresponds to the paper she used to mark up Bacon’s back.
4) Then the “fun” begins. One by one she finds the needle that corresponds to the number on the back and pricks the spot right next to that number with the needle. Each needle is sitting in liquid that has whatever it is used to test for allergies. He was sobbing by the end but hadn't really screamed.
Just to give you an idea of what his back looked like: Bacon is not even 2 yet, so he is pretty small. He had 4 1/2 columns of numbers on his back. The first 2 columns were for pollens, molds and pets. The third column was for the major food groups and the control. The last 1 1/2 columns was for the tree nuts.
They prick the skin and then wait for 15 minutes for the reactions. If there is a reaction, the skin around the prick will turn red and there will be a whiteish bump. How big that bump is will depend on how allergic to that specific item you are. The entire back itches but can't be touched. That was not fun with a 2 year old. He did much better after he got a sucker.
The left side of Bacon’s back was totally red. He had big bumps by EVERY pollen he was tested for. Thankfully there was nothing there for the molds, pets and not even the major food groups. HOWEVER, less than 2 minutes in to the 15, I noticed #5 of the tree nuts had gotten a huge bump, bigger than I ever saw with Pickle. So I concluded he was allergic to that nut but wasn’t sure which one it was. At 8 minutes the nurse came and looked. She was going to stop then but we ended up waiting for the full 15 minutes. The doctor looked at his back and was very curious about tree nut #5.
At the end of the 15 minutes, two nurses came in. One measures the bumps and redness while the other records it. Those numbers are compared to the positive and negative control and that is how you know what allergies someone has.
As the nurse was measuring the doctor came in and said, “Well, here’s the good news, we know he is allergic to a tree nut. The bad news, they aren’t the same ones as Pickle!” Nice right? More nuts we can’t have in the house!!!! He is allergic to Hazelnuts (tree nut #5) and Almonds. The doctor said she wasn’t surprised as hazelnuts and almonds have very similar proteins. Although he didn’t test as positive to almonds, so that’s a milder allergy but still an allergy. After all that, he was rubbed down with some lotion stuff and given some medicine to help with the itching.
We settled on a course of action for him. He will get a nasal spray twice a day during allergy season to see if that helps. I figure he was plugged from the allergies and when some virus came through our house or whatever, he would get an ear infection because his ears couldn’t drain. I’m hoping this fixes the problem. And he got his own set of Epi-Pens as well. Sometime in the next week he will be getting his own allergy bag to take with him everywhere. Now I have to remember the diaper bag, Pickle’s allergy bag and Bacon’s allergy bag. *sigh*
And the worst part of it all: Pach’s favorite lunch (and the only sandwich he really eats) is Nutella. And what is Nutella? Hazelnuts and cocoa. Nice. Tim wants to get rid of that but I am undecided. I think I am going to take him in for a food challenge (where the doctor gives him a tiny bit of the food he is allergic to and keeps increasing the size to see how allergic he is). I think I want to know. We know with Pickle a sliver of cashews, pistachios, pecans or walnuts will give him problems. But I have zero idea with Bacon. I think that is something I want to know and then I will make my decision.
