A Late Update

I totally thought I'd updated since last weeks allergy appointment, but apparently not! Once again, we had a long day at allergy but this doctor is so thorough, it's amazing! We walked out of there an hour and a half after her appointment time, with the majority of this time spent with the Allergist!

The doctor was impressed with the way Kara's skin looked and we decided she could go off the Prednisone. We discussed having some on hand in case of an extreme breakout again, we could get it started right away. She wants us to get down to using her Protopic daily and get away from the steroid creams that we've been needing. This skin stuff makes me crazy but at least her feet have been able to heal up! We were told to expect a flare as the Prednisone wears off and now, a week later, we have our flare. Poor girl! :(

Kara's interest in her nebulizer is great, when she's coughing, and lasts for about two minutes before she is done. With the time of year, we are going to more than likely need her to be on a steriod neb daily for control as well as her albuterol as needed. We were given a chamber for an inhaler, connected to a cute little ducky mask that Kara simply has to take five breaths with it up against her face, to use on a daily basis. Pretty neat! This will surely help with her having no interest in the nebulizer for the amount of time needed. It's been pretty nice because she knows that the nebs help her so when she starts coughing, often times she'll ask for one!

We went to this appointment to discuss whether or not we could begin our first food trial. It was decided that we would be ok to start with corn for the full 14 days of a trial before moving on. We talked about how we were 99% sure that corn would be perfectly safe, as she's tolerated it fine in the past, from what we remember. Our second food trial is up in the air between potato, banana or even apple.

We discussed our plan with Cincinnati, the opposite plan with the U, and my extreme (EXTREME) frustrations with how opposite they are and how I just don't feel like the U understands what they are working with. Our wonderful allergist understands exactly how we are feeling, as she's had to communicate with the U for me before because of me not getting through to them. She brought up the dreaded conversation of possibly having Kara see a GI doctor through Children's instead of the U, one who works a lot with food allergies, to which Brian and I both cringed. We have WAAYYYYYY too many options of GI doctors but NOTHING, NOTHING is promising. (Other than to fly out to Cinci, in hopes they can help and then hope to heck that Kara's GI doctor here will follow what they want us to do for her!!!) We left, I think,  not even addressing this yet. We are hoping that our first few food trials go well and the GI story can stay on the back burner for a little while. :)

At the end of the appointment, we were given the OK to start corn. Kara and I had gone shopping the night before and bought some KIX for our first trial. I had some in my purse ready to start! We were walking out and I handed her the baggie. We got in the elevator and the excitement in her eyes was unforgettable. She was SO happy! I teared up as she ate them, never thinking it would be as exciting as it was.

We are now on day six of the corn trial. We have some symptoms going on that we are a little unsure of, but nothing enough to pull the food yet. We are just going to be paying very close attention to every little symptom in the next few days.