Allergy Story, Part 3

I wanted to give an update to our allergy story (Part 1 Here and Part 2 here) since people often ask about how Ethan is doing. Thanks so much for your support & concern for him throughout the years. I hope that watching our story has helped you realize (if you didn't before) that parents of children with food allergies are just like you. We're not crazy & overprective. We dream of a normal childhood experience, complete with fun birthday parties, trick-or-treating, eating out, etc. We would never want this for our children, and hope every day that our children outgrow them. It is a challenge every day. I am so thankful that I've been given so much support by you, my family & friends. So...Now onto my FAQ's:

How is he with Milk & Eggs these days? He’s not able to drink a glass of milk, or eat scrambled eggs, quiche, etc. But he can tolerate milk and eggs used in foods. At the beginning of our good news, we jumped right into the unrestricted diet full-force. That was just too much on his little system. So we have pulled back. So we just try to go light on milk/eggs, but don’t have any real fears anymore about these foods.

How does he feel about it? People often expect him to feel like some whole new world has opened up to him, but he doesn’t really know any different. LIfe is very different, but mostly for me. It does make it a bit more difficult to explain, “You aren’t allergic to milk anymore, but you can’t drink a glass of cow’s milk.” The explanation was much simpler before. He just got it.

What will happen if he drinks a glass of milk? With large quantities of eggs/milk, now he gets very congested & has tons of snot & difficulty breathing (due to nasal congestion). His eczema flares up.

What about the Nut thing? He still has never ingested any type of tree nuts or peanuts. We’ve only had the skin test, so we will go back in for the blood test at a later date. We just have to schedule it, which I’m reluctant to do, because it’s pretty unpleasant.

What’s Next? The doctor thinks he will completely outgrow the milk/egg allergy. He said to just try every once in a while to give him eggs or a glass of milk to see how he responds. I gave him a little milk in May, and he was congested for 3 days. Last week I tried milk again & he seemed to handle it well. The nut allergy is likely lifelong.

What about Katie Belle? We haven’t had any testing done for her, but she has not had any reactions to foods yet.

Throughout the course of my blogging experience, I have had lots of people ask me questions. I'm so happy to help out anyone who is dealing with thie personally, or who wants to get a greater understanding of it. The whole concept is very overwhelming at first.