asher's allergy update.

Asher had some unfortunate events occur a couple weeks ago in regards to his allergies. He grabbed Matthan's milk cup and had it in his mouth for all of 10 seconds- and immediately his face had hives on it and it began to swell. I gave him Benedryl immediately and he responded right away which was great! Then, the next day, he was standing by Matthan's high chair as he was eating yogurt. Matthan accidently dropped his spoon and yogurt literally flew off the spoon and hit Asher in the eye. At the time, I thought- "ok, no big deal"- I wiped his face off and went on with whatever we were doing. Within a couple minutes, I look over at Asher, and it looked like he was hit in his eye. It was very red, swollen and he had hives all around his eye and side of his face. Again, I gave him benedryl and he responded right away. Needless to say, these were some stressful times, but we were so grateful we didn't need to use his Epi-pen.

The days following we were noticing an increase in gastrointestinal issues with Asher so I made an appointment to see our pediatrician. She checked him out, and agreed that without more info about his allergies its hard to know whats causing what's going on with his body. We had made an appointment a couple months ago with the leading pediatric allergy and immunology specialist at Johns Hopkins, but the earliest we could get in was February. The pediatrician agreed to call to see if she could help move the appointment up, however she said based on her experience with this in the past- it likely wouldn't do any good. Well, a couple days later, we got a call from Hopkins with an opening that week!!! We couldn't believe it. How kind of the Lord to make a way for our little guy to be seen and hopefully to provide some clarity to what's going on.

SO, a week ago, we took Asher to John's Hopkins where he saw Dr. Robert Wood. He was wonderful and very thorough. He talked with us about how genetics plays a significant role in a child having food allergies. We asked if there was anything that could have contributed while I was pregnant with Asher. Dr. Wood explained that while research is showing a connection between peanut products being consumed by the pregnant mother and a baby having allergies later down the road. However, he also stated that regardless of whether I ate lots of PB&J's while pregnant, Asher was meant to be an allergy baby, and even if we'd done everything right nothing would have changed that. He was very reassuring of what we have done up to this point, though he said he feels my diet is likely overly restricted. We are hopeful this may be able to change if we get some clarity on Asher's allergies and know what I really need to eliminate for Asher.

The doctor ordered some tests which will take a couple weeks to get the results. By the way Asher has had to have blood work twice in the last couple weeks and both times he never even cried! He did amazing!!!! The doctor also discussed Asher's eating- or lack-there-of. He said that Asher refusing all baby food is very common in babies with early onset food allergies. He said its almost as if they know that food can be dangerous for them- and therefore they refuse all food. The plan is to continue to try as best we can- he said finger foods should be more easily accepted by him, however we have to start with the pureed food- or semi-pureed at least. In the meantime, he continues to primarily have breast milk - and 8-12 ounces of formula. We won't go back to Johns Hopkins until Asher is 18 months old. Between now and then, we will be consulting with Dr. Wood by phone every month or two.

We pray the lab results will be conclusive and bring clarity as to what items Asher is truly allergic to and what he is not. We are also hoping Asher will be a little more open to trying solid foods. We'll post an update when we get the results from his testing.