Taryn's New Allergist

Two weeks ago, I took Taryn to her new allergist. I had been looking forward to this appointment for 4 months, mainly because this allergist was highly recommended to us a year ago when we found out about T's allergies.

A year! I can't believe its been that long, and yet can't believe its ONLY been that long.

Anyway, we learned some very intriguing things and have been able to modify some of how to deal with things here. I admit I wasn't thrilled by the doctor's perspective on things (I think some doctors are too concerned with protecting themselves to offer honest medical advice) but I appreciated his thoughts on others.

One of our biggest concerns was that even if we didn't see a reaction after exposure to something with one of Taryn's allergens in it, what was happening on her insides that we COULDN'T see? We certainly didn't want to be destroying her insides (like with celiac) by feeding her something just because we couldn't see a reaction. But the doctor assured me that the reaction will appear if the allergen is enough to warrent a reaction. If you don't see one, there is none.

So, if she eats some bread that has a milk ingredient in it and there is no reaction, it means her allergy to milk has a higher tolerance level than that bread contains. While there is some dispute about whether or not exposure to something will increase future reactions, there is also a lot of evidence suggesting that non-reactive exposure can actually increase the likelihood of outgrowing an allergy.

Because we know Taryn is very allergic to eggs, we're not willing to expose her to those at this point. She's never reacted to peanuts, but we don't really have a need to give her peanut butter, so we decided to start with milk. We are now offering Taryn baked goods that have milk baked in them. So still no cheese, yogurts, creams, etc. but she can have bread or cereal that has a milk ingredient. So far, so good! No reactions. Braden even made pancakes the other day and put real milk in it and no reaction! Last night, I gave Taryn a semi-sweet chocolate chip (which doesn't have full milk in it) and no reaction! Besides utter joy at having some chocolate!

Anyway, that's where we are at. He still thinks that she will outgrow the milk and egg allergy by the time she starts school and also doesn't confirm that she even has a peanut allergy since that is so heavily mis-diagnosed. Her reactions are so mild and he said that they probably are even more mild than they appear because of how fair her skin is. Her IgE levels in her blood are high, but are not causing major reactions, which is good.

So we have great hopes for her and really look forward to her being able to eat and live normally...especially since food is her favorite thing!