Well, here we are. Brendan has been in maintenance for Egg OIT for about two and a half months. After two more incidences of vomiting his egg white powder dose in December, the doctor and I decided that Brendan had developed an aversion to egg white powder (One of these times, Brendan gagged on the first spoonful of his dose!). You know that thing you ate when you were 5 years old and it made you throw up, and now you can't even stand the thought of it?! Like that.
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It's strawberry yogurt bars for me. After an incident as a preschooler,
I can not even think about eating anything like these babies ever again!!
So, I totally get how Brendan feels about egg white powder. |
So, we decided to change his maintenance dose from a tablespoon of egg white powder to a single scrambled egg each morning. Brendan has done BEAUTIFULLY on this new plan. He happily eats his egg. Sometimes it's got ham and cheese in it. Sometimes it's in a breakfast taco. Sometimes it's on a sausage biscuit. Variety is the spice of dosing! His brother always eats an egg with him, too, and usually I have one also (Daddy has one, too, on the weekends), so dosing is now a family affair! It's been over a month since we've had any kind of vomiting at the Larson house. Boy does it feel good to say that!! Brendan has also tried a few new egg containing products like mayo and cheesecake, and of course, we keep plenty of baked goods in his diet.
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| Chocolate Cheesecake, Anyone?! |
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| His first Molten Lava Cake from Chili's. |
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| His first cupcake from our local cupcake place! |
With egg going so well, we've turned our attention to kicking some tree nuts in the rear end. So far, Brendan has challenged and passed: pecan, almond, macadamia nut, cashew, pistachio, and walnut. He tests positive to all of those nuts except cashew. A few years ago, he passed pecan, almond, and macadamia, but I hadn't kept them in his diet regularly. Dr. Silvers allowed us to carefully reintroduce those at home. Cashew was also introduced at home because he tested negative to it. We had to challenge pistachio and walnut in our local allergist's office. The most "challenging" part of those two challenges was pulling Brendan off antihistamines in preparation for the challenge. We thought we'd never survive, and we actually had to reschedule once because he developed dermographism (hives wherever your skin touches something) while he was off of Zyrtec. Our local allergist relaxed the "rules" a bit for us, and allowed us to give him Benadryl up to 24 hours before the challenges once we rescheduled. This plan worked much better, although Brendan was still a bit rashy and itchy by the time the challenges rolled around. Luckily, he passed both challenges and took a Zyrtec before we even left the office after the second challenge! All we have left introduce are Brazil nut and pine nut at home, and we don't have to remove antihistamines for home challenges. Can I hear an A to the MEN?!!
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Six hours in the allergist's office over two days, challenging two different nuts,
and this is the only picture I can manage to take. Sorry, guys!! |
You've probably noticed one major tree nut missing from the list above: hazelnut. Oh Nutella, why must you be so delicious?! Brendan's hazelnut IgE is currently at 51.3. That number almost certainly indicates a hazelnut allergy, even though he's never actually eaten them. The other nut we still have to "crack" (I just couldn't resist the pun) is peanut. His peanut IgE rests at 97.4, also indicating an almost certain reaction to peanuts. Brendan has never eaten peanuts, either. He did kneel on a small smear of peanut butter on a carpet when he was two. He got hives on his knee where the peanut butter touched his skin. So, although Brendan has never eaten these two nuts, we have been assured by several allergists that he is, in fact, allergic. Given his history of anaphylaxis to wheat and egg, I'm assuming a run-in with peanuts or hazelnuts won't go well.
So, then there were TWO. Peanut and Hazelnut. Luckily, our awesome OIT allergist does multi-nut OIT. Brendan will be able to do up to 5 nuts and seeds at once for his next round of OIT. So, peanut and hazelnut: you've been put on notice. We're coming for you. We have day one for multi-nut OIT scheduled for March 17th. BRING. IT. ON. We will be FREE from these stinkin' food allergies!!!
