My Thoughs on Eczema & Food Allergies: Part 2 Reactions, Tests & Results

DISCLAIMER : THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE!!!!! PLEASE TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR OR ALLERGIST. THIS ARTICLE IN NO WAY NEEDS TO BE USED AS MEDICAL ADVICE.




Part 2: 

Before we had Kason fully diagnosed we went through months of wondering. Like mention before in Part 1 we had no idea what was lying ahead of us, we just did what we though was best for our child and what the doctors told us.. After Kason's surgery on his adenoids and tonsils we had noticed that his breathing at night was still raspy and very congested. We assumed it was a Pollen issue and that we would only need testing for seasonal allergens. What we did not expect was when Kason had his allergic reaction to peanuts. I assumed that day his asthma was really bad so I gave him Benadryl and his rescue inhaler. A week we are in the clinic having his RAST ( Radioallergosorbent) test done . I was nervous because we already had so many restrictions with his skin being so bad, foods would cause us even more. Faithfully we went forward and avoided the already known allergy to peanuts. During the time we waited for his results we noticed for the first time in his life his skin did not require the extreme amounts of steroid creams and the snoring once prevalent was now a light muffled snort. Two weeks later we had the results and everything started to make sense. His peanut levels where high like we had thought, but so many other foods where too.. A week later we are back at the doctor with his results and he orders Kason to go see an allergist. After the first visit we where again at a Lab doing another blood test (ICAP) , one that was supposed to narrow down his allergens so we could get what answers we needed. Two weeks  later the same thing happened , another overwhelming amount of foods that we could not feed our sweet boy until we could do the scratch test. About a week after the results we where back with the allergist and he went ahead and ordered the prick test.. I had to wait three agonizing months before we would know for sure what our sweet boy could not eat. In that time we went through a full on anaphilactic response to garlic ( what i thought at the time was the milk) and  I had to give my first epi pen. The weeks became months and it was time to go in for the test. It was laid back and Kason didn't mind it till they poked his back with the racks of the allergens and the hives started to show up.. His back looked like a war zone , hives and red spots.. I was finally given the list and while I was expecting nuts I was taken aback on how allergic he was to all of them.. How many times had I fed him nuts and never knew.. Could that be the reason why his skin was so bad? I was also told not to feed him Oats and Garlic and all nuts and a few others. I was told I could do dairy , but it had to be lactose free. I was thrilled by the release of his once VERY restricted diet. We wjere well on our way to being again able to enjoy the thing that scared me the most.. Food....

My Thoughs on Eczema & Food Allergies: Part 1 ( Before Diagnosis)

DISCLAIMER : THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE!!!!! PLEASE TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR OR ALLERGIST. THIS ARTICLE IN NO WAY NEEDS TO BE USED AS MEDICAL ADVICE.

I am going to do a small series on my thoughts on food allergies. I am going to talk a little about how I figured out that Kason had food allergies and the signs up until it, what happened and what tests they did and what happened post diagnosis..  Like I said above this is not medical advice.. this is simply what we went through..

Part 1:

I had always thought that my Kason was going to be a one of a kind child. Shortly into my pregnancy I had tests run and it came out positive that he would either be down syndrome and or have a mental retardation of some sort.. After extensive testing he was found to be normal and a healthy baby. My pregnancy was complicated from the time I reached 11 weeks. With placenta Previa, the constant bleeds, and the constant labor pains I was constantly in and out of the hospital. I had him at 36 weeks and 5 days ( two days short of being term). He had no issues breathing, eating and keeping his temp high enough.. I think his allergies started the day he was born because of the antibiotics i was given shortly before his birth. I think back on all the articles i read before his birth about antibiotics and the newborn. Newborns have no intestinal flora.. With any antibiotic it crosses into the breast-milk of a mother and can pass onto a baby. What would have been a gut filled with good bacteria was now a gut filled with nothing allowing allergens that otherwise would have been blocked to enter and invade his tiny little body. He started to break out in eczema about the time he was 3 months old. Prior to that he was always fussy and spitting up. When he got to be about 6 months old he had to be on oral steroids and antibiotics constantly which I again think allowed his body not to fight off allergens correctly, instead allowing them to get worse. I feel like his body was too busy fighting off infection than to protect himself from having an allergic reaction.

As he got older and closer to the time he was a year old I think that the eczema played into a lot why he had Microcytic anemia ( a lack of iron causing small and non working red blood cells) and went into failure to thrive. I do also thing the food allergies cause a leaky gut where he was not able to digest the breast-milk because too many allergens existed in my breast-milk. I do however blame the doctors some for not noticing his growth slowing and then stopping all together and not noticing the ailing condition of my son. After he had he breath holding spells we decided to get him help in the end ending up having him with a feeding tube.. Fast forward three months later the boy was on a high calorie diet, starting out on protein powders ( non dairy, soy) and high calorie lactose free milk. He would get vitamins through supplementation and then after awhile started to eat food ( he was about 15 months old at this time) . He was fully on a solid diet and eating foods that at the time I thought where safe. He did very well up until the age of three when he had his first allergic reaction. I had always though he had some sort of allergy to eggs and milk which was why I didn't feed him them. After his allergic reaction i finally talked to his doctor into tests.. 

To be continued in Part 2