Allergy Update

Monday was Kara's follow up allergy appointment.

We arrived a little early to Maple Grove and met Jill and Brynn, another FPIES Mom and daughter that we have become good friends with. We walked through Trader Joe's which is conveniently located just around the corner from our Allergist's office. Brynn is about a year younger than Kara so we have a little more food experience than they do. We did a little grocery trip, showing her some possible foods that could potentially be "Brynn Safe" down the road. We got in the car and Kara started crying, a painful cry, saying "poop!". We got the car parked and I quickly got her out of the car, checked the back of her diaper and she was clean. I was quite confused as she was very upset and seemed to be in a lot of pain. On our walk in and during our wait in the lobby and bathroom before her appointment, Kara cried in pain as we changed diaper after diaper. Five episodes, fifteen minutes. I was panicked, scared, not too sure what to think about what was happening. The receptionist at one point asked if she was going to be able to have her appointment. "Oh yeah - this all stems around her allergy problems!" Kara was wiped out by the time this was over with. We got roomed, got her vitals all taken and the doctor was in soon after.

I was so thrown off by the episode that had just happened that I just felt frazzled when he walked in. I quickly went into the episode that we just witnessed, explaining that I had NO CLUE what could have caused it. He reassured me that these things will happen, probably more and more as she gets older and more independent. We can't watch her every move, and being a toddler, she's going to get into things that she shouldn't have. Accidents can happen and will...

He is very pleased at how well Kara has maintained her weight. He did seem rather concerned about her lack of height, something we will be discussing with Kara's primary doctor in the near future. He's impressed with the diet that we have for her and agreed with what we are doing with the Neocate, limiting it to morning and night.With that, I showed him her RAST scores. Both peanut and dairy had rose a little bit since last year but nothing too alarming. He decided to skin prick test her as well and Kara was not too happy about that! Those results showed positive for dairy and negative for peanut. Even though it was negative, I still dont' think we'll be trying peanut anytime soon! As we were talking about her dairy allergy, he explained that it's not the dairy "allergy" that he's concerned with, it's that he's afraid she's going to have an FPIES reaction to dairy and that's the biggest reason why we are avoiding it. He did say that we could trial cooked dairy, as in a bread or muffin very carefully and see if she could tolerate it like that. Something to think about down the road, that's for sure!

Dr. Helm said he is confident that Kara will outgrow this someday. He said he hopes that when Kara is sixteen, we'll be thinking about how long it has been since she's actually had to see the allergist! That was hopeful. We confirmed that we will not be trialing any of Kara's FPIES triggers until she is at least four years old and to follow up again next year unless we have problems before then.

Yay for a positive appointment!