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.

I am happy to report that we DID in fact make progress this go around! Dean passed both the ibuprofen and penicillin challenges which are huge. We no longer have any medicines on his allergen list. Woo! In addition, we were given the go ahead to try reintroducing black beans, green beans, avocado, and oats (albeit borderline) at home. There is a specific order you have to reintroduce these items, going from the one that shows the most promise, to the last. The thought process is if he can’t tolerate one/some of the items, you can decide not to reintroduce the remaining.

We started with black beans first in August. After four days of trying them, he absolutely LOVES them…and so does his body! It makes me so happy seeing him eat them. They’re a great source of protein, and this opens up lots of new food options, e.g. black bean chips, soup, refried beans, in salad, etc. I also hope that by introducing one type of bean, his body might slowly adjust to others.

Did you know that food allergies are specific to the unique protein in each item? For example, a person can be allergic to black beans but not pinto, white, kidney, etc. This same thing is true for gluten. For example, people who have celiac disease can’t tolerate any gluten, however people who have allergies can be allergic to wheat but not rye or barley which also contain gluten. I had no idea before!  So you may think that not being allergic to one bean isn’t that big of a deal but for us this is HUGE since he’s allergic to whole families of these items, e.g. all peas, beans, gluten, lentils, etc.

We tried reintroducing green beans with no luck.  After three days, the hives got worse each day, so we canned (haha) that one.

While not a huge fan, Dean was able to tolerate avocado. I think he only eats it in guacamole format as a vehicle to really get to his chips. After his severe reaction to sunbutter (sunflower seeds) a few weeks ago, the doctor no longer felt comfortable trying oats at home so we need to schedule an in-office challenge.

On the flip side, his wheat allergy IgE levels doubled since last year (no surprise there) and his peanut level quadrupled. This makes me really nervous since we have no idea what peanuts will do in terms of a reaction since he’s never had them but based on his levels, it’s now double what wheat is, and we certainly know what kind of reaction wheat produces. This time, the doctor ran a molecular breakdown of peanut which indicates how severe a reaction a person will have if ingested. The results indicated that he’s likely anaphylactic. I think I’m now more terrified of peanuts!

In addition, she also ran a molecular panel on egg which shows whether a person can tolerate baked-in eggs (like in cake, cookies, etc.) versus plain (like scrambled, hard-boiled, etc.). Unfortunately, Dean did not pass this either which was no surprise.

We also added lupine to his allergy list which is a legume that’s showing up in a lot of newer gluten-free foods. It’s popular in Europe but making its way into more American products.

I didn’t think of this at our visit so will be adding testing for some alternate peas and beans soon. We know he’s allergic to green peas and chickpeas but I asked the doctor to explore sugar snap peas, snow peas, black-eyed peas, as well as some other beans: pinto, lima beans, and fava beans. I’ll take anything that’s a possibility!

So in summary, we eliminated ibuprofen, penicillin, black beans, and avocado, and added oats and lupine.  Full allergy list: gluten, oats, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, beans (except black), peas (including lupine), lentils, and sunflower seeds.  All in all, I’d say this visit was a major victory!!!

Reaction after a tiny needle prick of his more mild allergens. We forgot to wipe down his back, and this is what happened as we were leaving the dr’s office.

Feeling calm and cool again a few days later.