June marked Dean’s annual allergy testing and man, was it a big one. Every year, we perform the skin prick tests on less severe food allergens and draw blood to check both those as well as his more severe allergens. The idea is to see if any of the physical reactions and IgE allergy response levels drop enough that you can try to introduce the food back in at home or if borderline, perform an oral challenge in the doctor’s office. You can also see if any more severe allergies are going down in the hopes that he will eventually outgrow them. What a fantastic way to spend your birthday right?!

This go around, we also had to perform an oral challenge for ibuprofen where he is fed small doses of medicine three times in 15 minutes as well as a subcutaneous challenge for penicillin where they inject the medicine under the skin of his forearm in three locations. Then we wait for three hours to see if a reaction ensues. Because this takes a long time, appointments are scarce, and calendar coordinating is even more challenging, we weren’t able to get in until the end of July.
These visits are rough on our little man. After 20 needle pokes and four hours in the doctor’s office, you just hope it’s all worth it and some progress is made. Continue reading →